Breathe Today
by Liisa Vatanen
Summary: <html><head></head>My summary-writing skills are lacking, but it's a Camteen fic. 'Nuff said. Starts vaguely from 5x05 'Lucky Thirteen' and will *very* loosely follow the storyline. ON HIATUS</html>
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I own neither House, M.D. nor the characters associated with it.

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><p>"<em>Does your friend have a history of epilepsy?<em>_"__ Cameron asks as she walks briskly beside the moving gurney._

"_She never said.__"_

_She looks down at the hazy young woman Thirteen__'__s just brought into the ER with her. __"__My name is Dr. Cameron, you__'__re in a hospital. We__'__re going to take care of you,__"__ she says gently before turning to the off-duty brunette doctor who is clutching the side rails of the mobile bed tightly, __"__What__'__s her name?__"_

_She looks up at Cameron with wide eyes, as though she__'__s suddenly had a fearful __realisation__. __"__I don__'__t know.__"_

_Whether it__'__s inadvertent or not, the blonde ER head shoots her a disapproving look, and she inwardly cringes in humiliation.  
><em>

She sits alone in the locker room, angry and ashamed. It's been over a week since the incident and her one-night stand has since been diagnosed and discharged from the hospital. It's been a week, yet she can't seem to forget the way Cameron looked at her that night. She feels as though somehow she's disappointed her. She doesn't know why, given she and House's old fellow have exchanged little more than a few words and she's sure the older woman barely acknowledges her existence when House hasn't sent them to pester her in the ER. She wonders if it's because out of everyone at Princeton-Plainsboro, Cameron is the only person she can see herself actually maintaining a proper friendship with. Or, at least, Cameron is the only person she would want to be friends with out of choice. But Thirteen's too screwed up for friendships. Nobody wants to devote time and care to someone who's terminally ill and purposely self-destructive.

She rests her head in her hands, massaging her temples with her thumbs to try and ward off the headache she can feel slowly creeping over her. She stands - a little too quickly - and a sudden surge of dizziness strikes her. She braces her forearm against the locker unit and fishes her key from the breast-pocket of her lab coat to open hers with. She finds her supply of aspirin underneath a crumpled pile of pale blue scrubs and washes the pills down with the bottle of water left in there from the day before. She closes the locker door gently despite the desire to slam it shut to relieve some of her anger, and leans her forehead against the cold metal surface. She decides the soothing chill will suffice until the aspirin kicks in.

She wishes she possessed the power to turn back time so she could transport herself back to that night. Perhaps stay in and read a book or watch a film instead of heading out to the club to get intoxicated and pick up some random stranger to bring home the fourth night in a row. If not that, then at least ignore the advances of the one she did end up taking home and find somebody else. Perhaps if she'd been paying more attention she might have picked up on the girl's underlying illness and avoided all the trouble. Or at the very least, she might have escaped having her personal life become the centre of attention at the hospital. Now everyone knows she's a potential liability and her personal life is no longer as private as she would like it to be. She hates how she practically handed House the opportunity to analyse her on a plate, too. She doesn't like being dissected emotionally, and it makes her feel exposed in a way that makes her skin crawl. The less people know about her, the better off she is.

When she's sure the aspirin is working and she isn't going to have another spell of dizziness, she decides to head to the clinic and take a few hours of House's duty. Even though the rest of the team left a good deal earlier, she doesn't quite feel like going home just yet and she doesn't have anything better to do. Maybe House will lay off the jokes and jibes for a while if he sees she's done something for him without being told to. She returns her locker key back to her lab coat, unconcerned by the jagged indentations she's left in her palm from gripping it so tightly, and heads for the clinic.

She's just about to walk into the elevator when she hears a thud and an exasperated cry in the form of a curse behind her. She turns around to see a scrub-clad Cameron stooping to pick up the mass of files she's just dropped on the floor. Thirteen moves across to help her and starts gathering the folders furthest away from the older woman. She doesn't feel comfortable getting too close to her, though it's never seemed to bother her before and she wonders why it is now.

"Dr. Hadley. Hi," Cameron seems surprised by Thirteen's help, but smiles at her regardless and brushes a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "How are you?"

_I'm dying._ "Fine," she replies listlessly.

"You know," Cameron begins. She appears somewhat coy and keeps her eyes trained on the folder-strewn floor. It's clear that whatever she's going to say next is a delicate matter. "If you need to talk to someone-"

"I don't need to talk to anyone," the brunette interjects harshly, her eyes narrowing. What she's going through isn't something that can simply be solved by talking, and since she's certain Cameron isn't terminally ill like her, she will never understand what it's like, no matter how hard she tries.

"I was just saying-" the blonde starts, but Thirteen swiftly interrupts her again.

"Leave it alone, Dr. Cameron, it's none of your business." She feels a pang of guilt after the words come out of her mouth, and she sorely wishes she had just taken that elevator. It would have been better for the both of them.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I just thought-"

"Look," Thirteen says in a dangerously low voice as she struggles to stop herself from completely losing her temper, "I get that you're trying to be kind and all, but I really _don't_ need your charity. So don't try to pretend like you know what I'm going through, because you don't. And you don't know me." She pushes the stack of folders she has onto Cameron and walks away with her fists clenched at her sides.

She refuses to look back. She's angry again, though she isn't sure if she ever stopped being angry in the first place. She wishes Cameron would have just let it go. That way their conversation wouldn't have ended so horribly and she wouldn't have come off looking like a total bitch. The blonde doesn't care, though, much as she pretends like she does. How can she? They aren't friends and never have been. It's not right for her to act as such. She's never bothered with her before, and that's probably what annoys Thirteen the most; she's doing it out of pity.

Poor Dr. Hadley – she's only got ten years left to live. But don't worry, Saint Cameron to the rescue – to make those ten years that little less lonely.

She's gone through life without anybody to lean on; she's learnt to live for herself and never to rely on anyone else, so why should she need to now? The diagnosis hasn't changed anything. She's grown up knowing there is a strong possibility of having Huntington's, so when the blood tests confirm it she isn't so surprised. She's already accepted it; seeing the piece of paper with her result on it is simply a reminder, an affirmation of who she is; what will happen to her when she begins to lose control.

She doesn't feel like doing House's clinic duty anymore.

She heads back to the locker room, hoping she won't run into Cameron on her way there. Thankfully when she gets there it's empty, and she stuffs her lab coat carelessly into her locker, grabs the bottle of water, her leather jacket and her bag and leaves. She's distracted in the car and almost runs three red lights on her way home, but she manages to get back crash-free and in one piece. Her spacious apartment is cold when she gets in, but she's not staying there for long.

An hour later she's sitting in a bar with her third Vodka Martini. And it's certainly not going to be her last.


	2. Chapter 2

The excruciating headache she wakes up with is her body's way of telling her she drank far too much the night before. The beeps of her alarm clock feel like deafening blasts to her sensitive ears and she blindly reaches over to her bedside table to turn it off. It ends up getting knocked to the floor but the dreadful blare stops nonetheless. Sleep still clings to her as she forces herself out of bed, barely able to keep her eyes open. The cold bites at her bare skin when the sheets slip away and she shivers, wrapping her arms around her middle. She risks a brief glance over her shoulder to see that the other side of the bed is empty, except the pillow is dented as though someone was lying there at some point during the night. She doesn't remember anything after the first couple of martinis at the bar, let alone whether or not she brought someone home with her. She pauses, listening for the presence of somebody else in her apartment but she's greeted only with silence. The various items of clothing scattered across her bedroom floor are all her own. She grabs the long, cosy grey sweatshirt from over the back of the padded chair in the corner and pulls it over her head. The chill still nibbles from her mid-thigh down and she seriously considers cranking the thermostat up to full even though she's trying to avoid paying a huge heating bill. A hot shower would warm her up but the water won't be ready for another ten minutes, and she usually takes this time to make and eat breakfast or get rid of whoever she's had stay the night. The latter has already been taken care of, it would seem, so she makes herself an impossibly strong cup of coffee and a slice of honey-smothered toast with a side of aspirin.

Half an hour later she's showered, dressed and ready to brave another day at the hospital – and House's mockery. There's a note on the small table by the door when she goes to grab her keys. In wonderfully neat, flowing handwriting, it reads:

_Last night was fun. __We should do it again sometime. _

_Simone_

There's a phone number written underneath. She stares at the piece of paper for a few moments and then makes a decision, scrunching it up in her hand and aiming for the wastepaper basket next to the arm of the sofa. She misses only by a few millimetres and it bounces off the rim and onto the floor. Too lazy to go and pick it up, she takes her keys and leaves the apartment, locking the door behind her.

When she walks into diagnostics, Foreman is lying back in his chair with his eyes closed, Taub is busy working on a Sudoku puzzle, Kutner is engrossed in whatever game he's playing on his Gameboy and House is standing by the whiteboard twirling and swinging his cane around as if he's from some sort of martial arts film. He spins around when he hears the door open and points the rubber end of the walking stick in her direction, narrowing his eyes, "You're late."

She pulls back her sleeve and looks at her watch. "By thirty seconds."

"Thirty seconds too many!" he says loudly in a teasing, over-dramatic tone. Typical House, she thinks. "I hereby sentence thee to…" He pauses, quirking his eyebrows in thought, "three hours' clinic duty!"

"Don't we have a case?" she asks.

"A mental case, yeah," she hears Kutner say under his breath. House doesn't seem to notice and she suppresses a grin.

"What does this… immaculate, blank whiteboard tell you?" he questions, gesturing to it with his cane.

"We don't have a case…?"

"See you guys?" House turns to the three male fellows sitting around the glass table with a sarcastic smile on his face. "I told you partying all night doesn't make you stupid."

She ignores his comment. "Page me if you need me for anything," she says, backtracking and pulling the heavy glass door open.

"Does that include sexual favours?"

"No."

"What about a foot massage?"

"I'm leaving now," she replies, unable to conceal her smile as she walks out into the corridor. Even with his often cruel and twisted sense of humour, he never fails to make her smile at least once a day. There isn't a lot in her life left to smile about, so for that, she's thankful.

"Clinic duty for Dr. House?" she inquires at the front desk, glancing to the side where the waiting room is packed full of people. She wonders how many of them are going to waste her time with straightforward coughs and colds that can easily be taken care of at home.

The nurse, balancing a telephone receiver between her shoulder and her ear, hands Thirteen a chart. "Exam room two."

Two hours in and she's diagnosed three colds, two ear infections, one case of impetigo and four STD's. There's a knock on the door just as she's checking a little girl's tonsils, and Taub pokes his head into the room.

"Do we have a case now? Why didn't you page me?" she asks him, and then to the patient as she pushes down on her tongue with a wooden splint, "can you open your mouth a little wider for me, Emily? That's it, now say 'ah' for me."

"We still don't have a case. I'm here to relieve you," he explains. "I wouldn't go and buy him a bagel so he's punished me, too."

Thirteen smirks and turns to him as she takes the splint away. "I'll be out in a minute." When the door's closed again she turns to the mother, "it looks like she's got bacterial tonsillitis."

"Oh sweetie," the woman places a kiss on top of her daughter's curly blonde hair. "She won't have to have them taken out will she?"

The brunette shakes her head and takes out her prescription pad and the pen she 'borrowed' from Foreman a few days ago. "A tonsillectomy is usually a last resort. Since it's the first time she's had tonsillitis I don't think there's any need to worry; the antibiotics should clear it up just fine. Make sure she eats and gets plenty of fluids. She can have Ibuprofen for the mild fever and lozenges for the sore throat." She writes down a course of Trimox, a liquid form of amoxicillin, and hands it to the girl's mother. "Take this to the pharmacy."

Taub is waiting for her by the front desk. She hands him the chart and grimaces, pinching the bridge of her nose as she feels her hangover headache slowly returning.

"Are you okay?" he asks, studying her curiously.

"Fine. Just a headache. Have fun."

"I'm sure I will," he drawls.

House is absent when she arrives back at the diagnostic department. Foreman is flicking through Taub's abandoned newspaper and Kutner is still glued to the screen of the portable console he's playing. "Where'd House go?" she asks, fetching a mug out of one of the wall cupboards and pouring herself some lukewarm coffee from the pot. She takes a slip of blister pack from her lab coat pocket and pops out two little spherical white pills into her palm.

"He didn't say," Kutner tells her. "He's probably gone to prank Cuddy. Or Wilson. Maybe both."

"My money's on Cuddy," says Foreman.

The cafeteria is teeming with people when they break for lunch, minus House, who never returned after his disappearance act, and Taub, who is still finishing off his stint in the clinic. Thirteen's stomach churns when she sees Cameron sitting opposite Chase in one of the booths over the other side of the room. She's smiling, and giggles when Chase says something funny, so obviously their little spat yesterday afternoon has had little, if any, effect on her. She feels less guilty for her unpleasant attitude during their conversation now, but again she finds herself angry because Cameron's blitheness reaffirms the fact that she doesn't really care. Nobody cares. Not really, anyway. And why should they? She hasn't given anyone reason to care about her.

She pays for her ham and salad sandwich and an orange juice and follows Kutner and Foreman to the only table that's free. She frowns and quietly growls in frustration; just her luck that the only place to sit is a booth right next to Cameron and Chase. She keeps her head down as Foreman greets them, not even giving either of them an acknowledging glance. She can feel Cameron's eyes burning holes in the side of her face and she resists the urge to look up at her. What makes it worse is Foreman and Kutner occupy the seats back-to-back with Chase so Thirteen has to sit where she has a clear view of the blonde ER head.

She doesn't join in the conversation her colleagues are having, and concerns herself with reading the nutritional information on the sandwich packet. They aren't talking about anything she'd be interested in anyway. Football, she concludes, from the snippets she does catch every now and again.

"Thirteen?"

She looks up at Kutner. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Chase has just invited us for drinks tonight. Are you coming?"

If she's invited then it's not a 'boys only' thing. And that also means Cameron will be there, too. "I've already made plans for tonight, sorry." He pouts – weirdly, yet rather adorably - and it makes her feel bad for lying about being busy. "But if I can, I'll get there later," she adds to make him feel better. She's already decided she isn't going to go.

She's grateful when Kutner finally finishes eating the mammoth pizza slice he's been neglecting in favour of sporty chitchat. She's read her packaging so many times that she can recite what it says word for word, and has now moved onto Foreman's packet of potato chips. Chase stands behind them, soon followed by Cameron, and as they're about to pass by their table she turns away slightly so it doesn't look glaringly obvious she's doing it on purpose.

"I'll catch you up," she hears Cameron say to whom she assumes is Chase.

"All right?" Chase's tone is curious, but he leaves without asking any questions.

"Dr. Hadley." It's Cameron. Of course it's Cameron. "Can we talk?"

"I don't think there is anything to talk about." She keeps her voice low so that their spectators don't overhear. She knows Kutner will be edging closer in his seat to eavesdrop on them. "I have nothing more to say to you, Dr. Cameron."

The blonde touches her arm softly and she jerks her arm away as if she's just been burnt. Cameron tilts her head to one side sadly. "Please, just hear me out."

Her beseeching blue eyes make it impossible for Thirteen to say no, in spite of how much she wants to. She holds back an irritated sigh and nods curtly. She turns to Foreman and Kutner, who both try to appear uninterested by what's going on, and says, "I'll meet you back in diagnostics."

She follows Cameron out of the cafeteria, passing Taub on the way. He waves to her but stops as soon as he sees the scowl on her face and hurries by as though she might suddenly shoot lasers from her eyes.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," Cameron says, sitting down on a bench a short way up the corridor. She pats the space beside her and Thirteen perches on the edge, not planning on staying there for very long. "I shouldn't have pressed you."

The brunette feels like she's the one who's supposed to be apologising, but she can't bring herself to say the words. Cameron was in the wrong, pretending like she gave a crap. She doesn't trust herself to say anything in response, so she merely shrugs her shoulders, dropping her gaze to her lap.

"I thought I was dying once." Thirteen looks up at her with knitted eyebrows. "One of our patients was AIDs positive, and I thought he'd given it to me. I was terrified, numb and angry all at the same time. I felt powerless. I wanted to regain control over my life because I felt as though it had been stolen from me." She pauses, her hand twitching in her lap as if she wants to reach over and take the younger woman's hand. "I was reckless… unstable. I'm not proud of what I did. I needed somebody, and you need somebody, too." She looks searchingly into Thirteen's eyes to try and gauge her reaction, for her face gives nothing away. She swears they're glistening.

The brunette rises from the bench, swallowing hard. "Don't tell me what I need," she mutters. "The difference between us is I'm dying, you're not. Don't patronise me by feigning concern."

"But I thought I was-"

"Yes, you _thought_ you were dying. I _am_ dying. Even if you'd come up HIV positive, you'd live for far longer than I'm going to. I'll lose control of both my mind _and_ my body. I won't be me anymore. But you… you'd still be you. And I don't get a second chance." Her voice cracks as she speaks and it takes everything she has not to start crying. She blinks away the tears she refuses to let fall and starts to walk away. She's done talking.

Cameron catches her wrist in a surprisingly firm grip. "Please, let me help you."

"You just don't get it, do you?" Thirteen snaps, spinning round and glaring at her furiously. "I don't want your help! I don't _need_ your help. I don't think I can make that any clearer! You're wasting your breath, Cameron. We're colleagues. We're not friends and we never will be. And if I needed to talk to someone, you're the last person I'd go to." She feels her resolve begin to crumble when she sees the blonde's face fall. Her hand has slipped from around her wrist and hangs limply by her side. She opens her mouth to say something, but Thirteen stops her. "No. Leave it alone. Leave _me_ alone."

She doesn't look back when she turns and leaves. She can't. It's too painful, and she doesn't know why.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay, they aren't just going to argue for the entire fic. Just to let ya'll know, haha.


	3. Chapter 3

Thirteen curses under her breath when she feels a tear trickle down her cheek. She keeps her eyes trained on the floor because she'll be damned if she lets anyone see her crying, especially while she's at work. She has a reputation to uphold, after all. It's already bad enough that everyone knows about her night-time antics; she doesn't need to give them any more reasons to judge her.

She shoulders her way into the bathroom, nearly mowing down a nurse who picked the wrong time to leave, and locks herself in a cubicle with a muttered 'sorry'. She furiously wipes her cheeks, leaning back against the stall door and biting down hard into her bottom lip. She's heard people say that it's good to cry and get everything out but it doesn't seem to work for her. It makes her feel worse. She knows she needs to get a hold of herself, but no matter how hard she tries to make them, the tears won't stop. She's going to die, and she's going to die alone because she alienates everyone who might get close to her. That way, it's easier on everyone else. They won't be forced to watch as she loses control; to suffer the pain of loss as she did with her mother. Nobody should have to go through that. Not if she can help it, anyway.

But she's fooled herself into thinking that if she brings someone home each night it's going to fill the empty void she's created in her life. She's not sure how much longer she can continue to pretend like she doesn't need the comfort and security and proper relationship can provide.

It's only when she's sure any trace she might have been crying has faded from her eyes that she returns to diagnostics. She meets Kutner on her way, who tells her House left them a note and told them they could go home as a 'gesture of goodwill', and on the condition they all buy him breakfast for the rest of the week. They aren't going to pass on an opportunity for some much-needed downtime.

"Are you sure you can't come tonight?" he asks as they make their way to the locker room. "It'll be fun. Hey, I might even try to get Foreman drunk. You don't want to miss out on that."

"I said I'd try and make it later on," she replies. On a better day she might have found the idea of Foreman drunk rather entertaining - she's always wondered what kind of a drunk he'd be - but today she isn't at all in the mood for anything that might resemble fun.

He grins at her, oblivious to her standoffishness, "Promise?" It's like they're back in high school. She's surprised he hasn't offered her his pinky, too.

"Promise," she mumbles. It's one she's not intent on keeping.

A silence falls between them as they walk through the hospital, and she's quite glad of it. She doesn't feel like small talk or whatever it is she gets with Kutner, but she feels bad for being so detached with him.

"So, what did Cameron want to talk to you about earlier?" he asks nonchalantly.

"Nothing important." She's growing tired of people asking questions and nosing about in her business.

"It sure looked important. You were gone for a long time."

"Well, it wasn't," she snaps. He opens his mouth to say something but she holds a hand up to stop him. "Leave it." She says it more brusquely than she intends to, and he looks momentarily wounded. She looks guiltily down at her feet. "Sorry." It's not her place to apologise but Kutner is nothing but nice to her and she doesn't want to be the one to upset him. He probably thinks her talk with Cameron was something salacious, not serious.

He catches her eye and smiles, "Forget about it."

She wishes she could do just that - _forget_. They say ignorance is bliss, and right now, she's pretty certain that's true. She wishes she could forget about her Huntington's; forget that she might carry the gene, and just be happy without the perpetual dark cloud hanging over her head, or the ten-year death sentence looming over her life. She forces a smile to appease him even though she has absolutely nothing to smile about at the moment.

"So… I guess I'll see you later then," he says, heading for the door. "Maybe," he adds somewhat shyly.

She nods absently as she stares aimlessly into her locker. "Yeah, maybe."

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><p>She's washing her hands at the basin when she sees the locker room door swing open and Chase walk in. He wears no expression until he sees her and his face contorts into an irate glare.<p>

"What the hell did you say to Allison?" he demands, his angry eyes meeting hers in the reflection of the mirror.

For a moment she doesn't know what to say and she simply stares dumbly back at him. He's caught her off guard; she should've known he'd come and defend Cameron. It's his chance to prove to her how wonderful a boyfriend he is by playing her knight in shining armour. Thirteen finds it extraordinarily irritating. She does, however, find the concept of Cameron being upset rather interesting. It's a sign that she may care more than she initially thought, though she can't understand why, or how. "That's between Cameron and me," she answers after regaining her cool, calm composure. "I don't see why it's any of your business."

He thrusts his hands into his pockets and moves closer to her, "She's my girlfriend and she's upset because of you. It might not have been my business before, but it is now."

She unconsciously takes a step backwards and feels the ceramic of the basin against the small of her back. She hopes he doesn't come any closer. "Like you said, she's your girlfriend. Why don't you just ask her?"

"I'm asking you."

"And I'm telling you it's none of your concern."

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what you said to her," he says, removing his hands from his pockets and folding his arms across his chest. She blinks once and then all of a sudden he seems slightly closer than he did before. Too close, she feels. She sidesteps to go around him and create some distance between them but he blocks her way. She's as tall as him with her high-heeled boots on but he's broader than she is.

"Back off, Chase," she growls, deciding she's had enough of him. "If Cameron wanted you to know why she was so upset, she would have told you. But she didn't, so obviously she thinks it's got nothing to do with you, too."

"Fine," he snaps, "but if you _ever_ say anything to hurt her again…"

He doesn't finish that sentence and flings the door open and stomps out of the room. She knows if he were to threaten her it wouldn't amount to anything. She isn't going to say anything to hurt Cameron again, anyway; she isn't going to say anything to her at all.

She gathers her things quickly before Chase comes back for round two and heads home. She'd been contemplating staying at the hospital and dilly-dallying in the doctors' lounge, but practically everywhere in the hospital there is a chance she could run into Cameron, and now she is worried about running into Chase, too.

Her free afternoon is spent catching up on lost sleep, and when she awakes it's just after eight o'clock in the evening. She carries herself into the living room and is about to flick the news on the TV when she notices the lone crumpled piece of paper sitting a few feet away from the wastepaper basket. She picks it up and opens it out, rereading what it says. Her other hand reaches for her cellphone on the coffee table and she keys in Simone's number via the touchscreen. Her thumb hovers over the 'send' icon for a minute or so before she shakes her head and cancels the dialling menu. She leaves the note on the coffee table, deciding she might make use of it in the future, but not tonight. After her short bout of slumber, she quite fancies the idea of more. She makes herself a simple pasta dish with some random tomato and mascarpone sauce she finds in the cupboard for dinner and watches an episode of Modern Family on ABC whilst she eats it. It manages to alleviate her melancholy for twenty minutes or so, and at one point she nearly chokes on her food because she's laughing so much.

It takes her a while to warm up beneath the cool sheets when she gets into bed, but she already feels her eyelids becoming heavy and sleep beginning to creep over her.

* * *

><p>When her cellphone rings and wakes her she sleepily murmurs a number of expletives at whoever's calling before she answers. She glances at the digital display of her alarm clock as she reaches for her phone, and holds it to her ear without bothering to check who's responsible for disturbing her. It's only eleven p.m. but it feels as though she's been asleep for much longer than a few hours.<p>

"Hello?" she mumbles, collapsing back against the pillow.

"Dr. Hadley, I'm sorry to call you so late," she recognises Cuddy's smooth, husky voice. "We need you in the ER. There's been a crash with multiple casualties and we're short-staffed as it is, right now. We could really use your help here."

"I'll be right there," she says, hanging up and leaving the comfort and warmth of the covers.

The ER is like a war zone when she arrives. A three-way crash between two trucks and a quarter-full bus has escalated into a mass pile-up with at least five boy racers and their idiotic passengers who couldn't stop in time being added to the list of casualties. She hopes House isn't going to turn up later as one of the wounded from the accident like he did the last time. She feels a pang of sadness in her heart for Amber, because as cutthroat and bitchy as she was during the competition for a place on House's team, she didn't deserve to have her life cruelly snatched away like it was.

Anyone wearing a white coat or scrubs is directed by the nurses to one of the many unattended patients of the crash, and Thirteen is designated one of the truck drivers, or so she assumes. Even though the trucks were the ones in the preliminary collision, they appear to have escaped with the least injuries, and she only has to deal with a minor head wound and a laceration on the arm from broken glass.

"He was driving on my side of the road you know," says her patient.

She glances at his eyes while she dabs at the weeping lesion on his bald head, "Right." She isn't particularly interested in hearing about what happened; she's too busy concentrating on getting him fixed up so she can move onto the next person that needs help. She catches sight of a curtain being pulled open a few beds down the line, and Cameron walks out pulling off her bloody latex gloves and tossing them into the waste. She doesn't notice the brunette looking her way, and begins a staid conversation with the nurse who assigned Thirteen her patient.

"Excuse me?" Mr. O'Neal cranes his neck to follow her line of sight. He grunts and moves to turn back, but does a double-take, looking past Cameron and down the line of beds. He leaps up from his seat, almost knocking her over, and pointing at a man sitting on the bed where Cameron has just finished, he yells "This is all your fault!"

"Mr. O'Neal, please sit back down. I'm not fin-" He ignores her and begins clomping down the corridor in his heavy boots.

"Mr. O'Neal, I'm not done," she says loudly, but he's either refusing to listen or he doesn't hear her as he continues his charge. The man he is approaching, likely the other truck driver, doesn't seem to notice he's being shouted at – in fact, he looks decidedly lethargic – and he only becomes aware when he's being grabbed by the front of his shirt and thrown to the floor. "Mr. O'Neal!" Thirteen rushes to the brawl unthinkingly and tries to restrain her hostile patient's punching arm with both of her own. She hears Cameron call her, and all of a sudden Mr. O'Neal has pushed her away from him with such force that she careers into a supply trolley and her head impacts painfully with the hard edge. She groans in pain and clutches her head, hearing a lot of shouting and through blurry vision seeing a deluge of male nurses and doctors – one of whom she's sure is Wilson – swarming her unruly patient to contain him.

Cameron appears next to her and helps her to stand with one hand under her arm and another around her waist in some strange half-hug, a worried expression on her face. Thirteen removes her hand from covering where her head hit the trolley and looks to her crimson palm.

"How bad is it?" she asks. She's aware of blood trickling down the side of her face but since the pain is so spread across the entirety of her head she can't discern where it's coming from.

She's also aware that Cameron's hand is still resting gently on her waist.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed/alerted/favourited this story so far. I'm not sure about this chapter, myself. I don't know why. Let me know what you think (if you want to, of course).

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><p>"I think you'll live," Cameron replies softly, and adding, "if you'll let me help you this time?" She says it in a light-hearted fashion to ease some of the unspoken tension between them, but her eyes hold a much deeper connotation.<p>

Thirteen soberly meets her gaze and nods slowly. The deal she made with herself earlier in the day to stay away from Cameron has been abandoned. She doesn't want some random nurse from the ER to deal with her injury; she wants Cameron, because Cameron feels – unexpectedly – familiar. She finds the hand touching her waist to be somewhat soothing, and for a fleeting moment, she doesn't feel alone anymore. Certainly, she's been touched by women before, but not quite in the same way. With Cameron, there is tenderness and care; two powerful things her nightly conquests are always missing. When the older woman takes her soothing hand away, the feelings of emptiness descend upon her again like a torrent of rain falling from a darkened sky.

Before she follows Cameron down the corridor, Thirteen looks to where her patient is now being restrained by three burly men from security, and the victim of his enraged attack is being seen to for the new injuries to his face.

"Have a seat, Dr. Hadley," says Cameron as she holds the door to her office open.

When she walks in, Thirteen notes that the office is exceptionally tidy save for the messy pile of charts and folders taking up the majority of the space on the desk. She perches on the edge of the tan leather cube sofa, being careful not to wipe her bloody hand all over it as Cameron pulls the small coffee table closer and on it, sets down a small assortment of medical supplies. The blonde, armed with swabs, takes a seat next to her and twists her body so she can properly examine the younger woman's wound.

"That was brave of you," the blonde remarks as she sets about mopping up the blood around the injured area so she can actually find the source of it.

"What was?"

"Trying to break up that fight," Cameron replies.

"I think 'stupid' would be a more appropriate word to use," Thirteen says solemnly, wincing as the swab grazes her wound.

"Okay, maybe it was a little stupid," Cameron agrees. The brunette attempts to raise her eyebrow but it causes a fresh wave of pain to explode across her skull and she grimaces. "_But_," the blonde puts emphasis on the word, shuffling forwards on the sofa slightly so she can better deal with Thirteen's injury, "it was still very brave, Thirteen." It's the first time she's referred to her by her nickname. Of course, it's not her real name, but it's still more personal than 'Dr. Hadley'. It's strange to hear it on Cameron's lips, but she decides she likes the sound of it. "Not many people would willingly step in the middle to defuse the situation like you did. Mr. Mills could've been seriously hurt if it weren't for you."

Thirteen looks down into her lap, where her scarlet hand is resting palm-up on her knee. She lets out an amused sigh. "I doubt I'll willingly do that again." She sees the blonde smile out of the corner of her eye, and then her soft fingertips are gently pressing against her jaw to encourage her to turn her head more towards her. She does so, and quietly observes Cameron as she carries out her careful, attentive ministrations. Perhaps the bang to her head has muddled some of her cognitive functioning, but she begins to wonder whether she might have been wrong about the older doctor. She still doesn't quite understand why Cameron could, or would, care about her, but honestly, right now she doesn't _want_ to understand. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, cutting into the heavy silence. Apologising has never been one of her strong suits, but this time she's prepared to make the effort. She owes her that much.

The blonde temporarily stops what she's doing to meet Thirteen's apprehensive gaze. Her display of diffidence is a stark contrast to the usually confident and steely demeanour she carries elegantly around the hospital. Cameron can't help but find it endearing, no matter what she feels after what happened earlier. She returns her eyes to the now visible and rather vicious-looking horizontal gash on the left side of the brunette's forehead, just above her eyebrow. She reaches for the small bottle of medical glue on the coffee table. "Don't be," she says.

"I am." Thirteen winces as Cameron applies the glue to her cut, inhaling sharply through gritted teeth. "You didn't deserve to be spoken to like that." She pauses, nibbling on her lower lip. The accident really has messed up her brain. She can't even control what she's saying anymore.

But then she realises the things she's saying now are spoken from her heart, and not from her head. It's always been an inner struggle between the two, and up until now, her head has always been victorious over her heart. Her heart yearns for companionship; for an end to her loneliness. Her head, on the other hand, is devoted to the ideal that she's perfectly fine on her own, and that by remaining detached from everyone who's unavoidably in her life, she's saving herself, and them, any hurt. But even despite this philosophy, she managed to hurt Cameron, and in doing so, she ended up getting hurt herself. Now, everything she's done to isolate herself seems… pointless. Why should she deny herself the good things in life if someone, somewhere is going to end up suffering anyway?

"I shouldn't have interfered." There is a cool edge to the blonde's tone that is echoed in her unusually icy blue eyes. The eternal kindness normally there is nowhere to be found. "Like you said - it's none of my business. We're not friends, and I'm the last person you'd come to if you needed to talk." The way she repeats the cutting words Thirteen used during their heated conversation earlier makes the brunette baulk with shame.

"I was wrong," she murmurs. She catches Cameron's eyes as the blonde puts some medical tape over her glued gash. "I didn't mean what I said."

"If you didn't mean it then why say it at all?"

"It was rash, and stupid, I know," Thirteen replies sombrely. "It's no excuse."

Cameron lowers her hands after the final strip of tape is put in place, "You're right; it is no excuse. It was cowardly. You acted like a coward."

"What?" Thirteen gawks at her incredulously, unable to believe what she's hearing. She frowns, albeit painfully, and shakes her head. Her voice is even, but firm, "I may be a lot of things, but I am _not_ a coward."

"I didn't say you were a coward."

"You _just_ said-"

"I said you _acted_ like a coward," Cameron interjects, "there's a difference."

"Really? 'Cause it sounds the same to me." She's standing now, with her back to Cameron, glaring at the multi-coloured butterfly painting hanging on the wall in front of her. She knows she ought to just walk right out of that office and return to helping out in the ER, but there's something keeping her there. Pride, perhaps? If she runs away from this argument, it just proves Cameron's right. She hears movement, and becomes aware of the blonde's presence behind her.

"What are you afraid of?"

The question hangs heavily in the air for a long, tense moment. Thirteen turns around slowly, refusing to meet Cameron's gaze. "Everything," she replies in a hushed voice. She looks at her, then. "Everything," she repeats with tears in her eyes, "of losing my mind… losing my body… everything…" She doesn't want to cry in front of Cameron, but it's too late and the tears are already spilling down her cheeks.

And then Cameron's arms are wrapped around her and everything else in the world seems obsolete. "You don't have to do this alone," she says gently. "I'm here for you… if you want me to be."

Thirteen nods against Cameron's shoulder and her arms creep around her slender frame in response to the embrace. "Yes," she whispers.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Well, I'm sorry this one took so long. And I'm also sorry if this isn't up to my usual standard. Anyways, this chapter contains some dialogue from 5x07 'The Itch', but I've added/taken away a few bits here and there so it better fits in with this fic. Let me know what you think. Or don't. It's entirely up to you. Thanks again for reading and following this story!**

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><p>It's the longest hug she's had for a long, long time, and part of her doesn't ever want it to end because when Cameron's arms are around her, the loneliness and the fear that dominates her life melts away. She's no longer crying, but the blonde is still holding her as securely as she was to begin with and there is no indication that she wishes to let go.<p>

"We should probably get back out there," Thirteen says after a short while, reluctantly breaking away from her. There's only so long an embrace can last before it eventually becomes stilted so she ends it before it can get that far. She doesn't want Cameron to think she's clingy, or get the wrong impression from her. "Those patients aren't going to heal themselves," she lets out a strained chuckle to try and alleviate the sombre mood.

"_You're_ going to lie down," Cameron smiles. She reaches up and gently smoothes the edges of the medical tape across the brunette's cut, though her fingers graze more skin than tape. "You're officially my unofficial patient. Here," she moves behind Thirteen to slip her lab coat off and then guides her to the sofa, where she arranges the bulky cushions at one end.

"You don't need to do this; really, I can just go ho-"

"Don't be silly," Cameron says, fetching a cream blanket from the other side of the room. She drapes it across the length of the sofa, "Do you need any painkillers?"

Thirteen shakes her head.

"Rest," the blonde takes her hand and squeezes it. "I'll be out there if you need me."

She sighs once Cameron has left the office to go back to the ER and runs her fingers through her hair. She doesn't really have a choice except to lie down as instructed. Besides, she does feel a little tired, and she can't be bothered to call for a taxi to take her back home. She takes her black brogues off and settles beneath the blanket. It's not long before she falls asleep feeling somewhat contented with the idea that Cameron is going to take care of her.

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><p>When she wakes up she's confused at first, wondering where she is, and why. It takes a moment, and then eventually everything comes back to her. But she doesn't care about how she was called into the ER in the middle of the night and smacked her head against a supply trolley whilst trying to hold back her aggressive patient. All she can think about is how Cameron helped her and looked after her, and how she opened up to her and cried against her shoulder.<p>

At the time, she was feeling particularly hazy and emotional and mixed up. Now her head is clear, she feels utterly mortified for disclosing her most intimate feelings to the older doctor and for dissolving into a sobbing wreck in front of her. Cameron is a colleague whom she's shared only a small number of exchanges with; practically a stranger. Foolishly, she's gone against everything she's been standing for; everything she argued so fervently with her the morning before. A simple knock to her head and she's prepared to detail her entire life story to somebody she hardly knows.

_No_,she thinks, _that's not fair. She helped me even when she didn't have to. She offered me comfort and companionship when she didn't have to._

She realises she's being ungrateful and she remembers how she felt when the blonde had been there for her after she'd been hurt, and how she'd been so gentle and kind to her, and how she'd held her as she wept. She doesn't remember the last time anyone held her when she cried. Nor has anyone in her life ever treated her with such tenderness and care. And yet, after all this, she can't help but feel embarrassed for the way she acted, no matter how benevolently the older woman acted towards her in response. The thought of facing her again isn't a pleasant one, so she decides it's best if she leaves her office before she gets back.

She takes her lab coat from over the back of the sofa, puts her shoes on and folds the blanket neatly in the space where she was sleeping. She returns the cushions she'd been using as pillows back to their original places at both armrests, and goes to leave the office. As she wraps her fingers around the handle she stops. She doesn't plan on bumping into Cameron in the ER, but she can't just leave without thanking her. She can be rude at times, sure, but she's not _that_ rude. She takes her prescription pad out of her pocket and writes: '_Thank you, Dr. Cameron. – 13'_. She toys with the idea of signing her real name, but decides against it. She's already revealed far too much to Cameron, and this is her way of retaining some splinter of anonymity.

She leaves the note on top of the folded blanket and makes a swift exit from the office, walking briskly towards the nearest elevator.

When she arrives home she's already decided she's going to call in sick later. She goes back to bed until seven a.m. after taking some painkillers to get rid of her headache, and calls the hospital to let them know she isn't coming in today. If they get a case, she's pretty certain House will send one of the guys to her apartment to fetch her, anyway. After all, and much to her irritation, they know where she lives now.

She spends half the day in bed reading a Patricia Cornwell crime novel she started a while back but never got to finish, and the other half doing some long overdue cleaning in the kitchen and bathroom. It suitably takes her mind off Cameron and the events of the previous night for a while, but not for long enough.

When she's finished tidying up, she sinks onto the couch with a glass of red wine and eyes the crumpled note on the coffee table. She reaches over and flattens it out against the table with one hand, and then takes the handset from its cradle, dialling the number written.

An hour later, there's a knock on the door. She takes a quick look in the mirror before she goes to open it, even though she already knows she looks flawless. She's changed out of her scrubby sweatpants and hoodie into a pair of skinny jeans and a v-neck t-shirt and put just a little hint of eyeliner on.

"Hi," she says. She faintly remembers Simone now; a beautiful auburn-brunette with striking green eyes and ruby-red lips. Her eyes rove her body hungrily as she stands there in the doorway, smirking knowingly.

"I wondered how long it would take for you to call me," Simone says as she steps into Thirteen's apartment, her voice tantalisingly silky. She gives the door a slight backwards push and it swings shut behind her. The thud as it closes coincides with the brunette's lips colliding with her own.

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><p>Simone's gone again when Thirteen wakes up. She thinks she could get used to the 'no-strings-attached' thing they seem to have going on, and is rather glad she chose not to throw away her phone number. She's quite certain she may use it again in the very near future.<p>

She's woken earlier than usual but she isn't tired enough to go back to sleep for another hour, so she has her shower, gets dressed and walks to the hospital since she left her car there the night before. She was sensible enough not to try and drive home with a possible concussion.

She's there long before House or anyone else on the team, so heads to the cafeteria for a latte and a croissant for breakfast, and then sits in diagnostics reading a medical journal until Kutner walks in.

"Hey," he says groggily, sitting down opposite her. It takes him a moment, but he finally notices the angry welt on her forehead. "What happened to you?" He asks.

She closes the journal and slides it to one side. "In the ER last night… my patient got a bit angry," she replies. "Not at me – at another patient."

"So… how'd _you_ end up getting hurt?"

"Tried to stop my patient from kicking the other patient's ass." She chuckles, "Got mine kicked instead… Anyway, how was your night out?"

"Good, yeah. Taub's a total lightweight, though. Four shots and he was gone."

A few moments later the door swings open behind her and House limps into the room, closely followed by Foreman and Taub, the latter looking slightly rougher than usual.

"I didn't have breakfast this morning…" House says, pursing his lips. "I think there was a reason why, but I can't remember… oh, wait, that's right - aren't you guys supposed to be getting it for me?"

Taub blindly throws a packaged bagel behind him and by pure luck it flies towards House who catches it effortlessly in the crook of his arm.

"Nice shot!" Kutner and Foreman say to him in unison. Taub simply gives them a pained smile and rubs his head.

"Oh look! We have a visitor!" House cries, his mouth full of half-chewed bagel. "I feel a bit of nostalgia coming on; don't you, Foreman? We just need a roguishly handsome guy with an accent and great hair and we've got the old team back."

Thirteen squirms in her chair when the door to diagnostics opens and Cameron walks in with a case for them. She really hoped it would be longer before they saw each other again. Clearly she hoped for too much; she always hopes for too much.

She refrains from making eye contact, but briefly appreciates how good the older doctor looks in a close-fitting grey sweater and grey trousers. Then she reprimands herself for thinking such things.

"Thirty-five year old male, crushing headache and three seizures in the last two days," Cameron tells them, her gaze lingering on Thirteen longer than anyone else in the room.

"So we have a bleed, a clot, a tumour, metabolic, or infection," House says as he pours coffee for himself. "Stick him in a CT…"

"Can't," Cameron interjects.

"I'm assuming he has a giant head."

Cameron holds up the chart, "Severe agoraphobe. The world scares the hell out of him, so we can only test him with whatever we can take to him."

"Fun," House remarks ironically, limping to her and accepting the proffered file.

"Is agoraphobia a symptom?" asks Kutner.

"Only of being shot," Cameron replies, bracing her hands on the back of one of the empty chairs at the end of the glass table. "He and his girlfriend were mugged seven years ago; that's when it started."

"Anybody can hate humanity after getting shot," says House, "takes a big man to hate it beforehand."

"How'd you get this case?" Taub asks her, "If he didn't come to the ER."

"I talked to him through his door when he had flu last year," she answers, "I run the community outreach program now."

"See? Perfectly reasonable explanation," House looks up from the chart to glance between Cameron and Taub, "She's definitely not here trying to work her way back on the team and… steal your job or anything."

"It's a legitimate question," Taub mumbles.

Cameron's eyes settle on Thirteen every now and again, but the brunette doesn't even allow her an acknowledging glance. Her eyes are fixed on the pen she's determinedly twisting between her fingers in an attempt to appear uninterested by the discussion.

"Do you have to take _all_ of my minions with you?" House asks her, pouting as he leans heavily on his cane, "I'll be lonely."

"You're welcome to come along, too," replies Cameron with a wry smile, "I know how much you enjoy visiting your patients." She continues when she doesn't get a response from him, "He agreed to meet with us, but even if I can get inside his house, his brain is a black box…" She trails off when House's line of sight shifts behind her and he heads for the door to where Cuddy is standing. He drops the file in front of her on the table. "You can pick this up in a minute…" She says to his back as the door swings shut behind him.

There is an awkward silence left in House's wake and Cameron stands there uneasily, unsure what to say. She wants to directly ask Thirteen what's wrong, but she knows it will just exacerbate the problem by putting her on the spot in front of the others. Instead, she opts for flicking absent-mindedly through the file she's holding until her former boss decides to return from talking to his current boss.

"Portable equipment can't distinguish a bleed, or a tumour; can't see vasculitis," Cameron tells him when he re-enters.

"What did Cuddy want?" asks Thirteen. They're her first words in Cameron's presence this morning.

"Oh, I kinda… _hit that_ last night, so now she's all on my jock," House says, proud but observably sarcastic.

"Wow…" Thirteen shoots a brief look behind her to Cuddy, "she looks pretty good for someone on roofies." She feels a strange sense of achievement when she sees Cameron smirk in her periphery.

"You can have Thirteen…" House tells the blonde. Thirteen drops the pen and it clatters loudly against the glass in the otherwise silent room. He observes her carefully for a moment before continuing, "…and Kutner. But I get to keep Foreman and Taub."

Cameron raises an eyebrow at him, trying not to smile.

House rolls his eyes, "all right, all right, you can take Taub, too." He nudges Kutner and says in a low voice, purposefully loud enough so that everyone can still hear him, "If Cameron and Thirteen start making out, videotape it."

Cameron glances anxiously at Thirteen, who fixes on House with narrowed eyes. Her grip on the pen is so tight her knuckles have turned white.

"Oh! I'm sorry," a grin tugs at the edges of his mouth as he attempts to feign concern, "I thought that was your 'thing'."

Her mouth curves into a cynical, false smile. "It'd be a highly unprofessional thing to do whilst we're treating a patient," she remarks coolly. She purposely leaves the option for another occasion open, however, partly for the sole purpose of titillating him, and partly because, well, anything can happen.

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><p>They spend the best part of half an hour standing in the walk-in area of the patient's home waiting for him to open the door. Eventually he agrees to let them all in with the arrangement that Cameron examines him in one room whilst the others conduct a search in the rest of his house for toxins.<p>

Their initial plan to invoke a seizure in the patient – under House's instruction, of course – didn't yield any results, and after a comprehensive investigation of his house with nothing to be found, they convene at the patient's kitchen table to talk to him over the phone.

"His place is totally clean," Taub begins. "No animals, no hidden drugs or alcohol, no lead in the paint."

"And since you're not breathing hard, I assume you're not holding Cameron aloft in triumph, which means there's no seizures." He pauses. "Hey, speaking of breathing hard: Cameron – you engaged to Chase yet?"

Thirteen tenses at the mention of the Australian's name, suddenly feeling a small spark of anger when she remembers how he'd tried to intimidate her in the locker room two days before. There's also something else that bothers her about the subject of Cameron and Chase, but she can't seem to determine what it is. "Sorry, we should've clarified: we're calling about the patient, not Dr. Cameron's love life," she retorts.

"We aren't engaged," Cameron says, turning towards Thirteen and successfully catching her eyes for a moment. "Moves things along much faster to just give him the answers."

Thirteen averts her gaze and leans back against her chair. She doesn't particularly want to hear about Cameron's love life. It makes her feel uncomfortable, and alone, and… jealous? Yes, jealous of what they have together; nothing more.

"Seizures can also be induced through…" Cameron continues, though she and everyone else around the table know it's futile. Once House has set his sights on something he'll stop at nothing to get it.

"After six years?" House asks.

"A year and a half. Through sleep depravation or…"

"Sleep depravation would take too long. You living together?"

"We spend most nights together. There's a bunch of drugs that can lower a seizure threshold."

Thirteen can't quite grasp how nonchalantly Cameron is answering House's personal questions. She's also on the brink of getting up and leaving the room because the more she hears about Cameron and Chase, the angrier she feels. She doesn't really know why. Or at least, she doesn't want to acknowledge why.

"And cloud the diagnosis with side-effects. His place or yours?"

"His, usually."

Thirteen's fingernails are digging so hard into her thighs it's beginning to hurt.

"Interesting," says House.

"You would've said 'interesting' no matter what the answer," Cameron says.

"And no matter what the answer it would've been interesting! No engagement - commitment issues… his place - control issues… not sure whose, but… interesting."

Thirteen turns to Cameron with a disdainful expression. "Yeah… moves much faster this way," she snipes crossly.

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><p>It's just after five p.m. when Kutner and Taub decide to leave the patient's home to go back to their own. There haven't been any detectable changes in his health yet, and until they can move him to the hospital or until House has one of his case-solving epiphanies, there isn't anything else they can do. Cameron stays with the patient in his room monitoring him and talking to him in an attempt to coax him out of his unfaltering fear. Kutner asks Thirteen if she's going to go home too, but she shakes her head and says she's going to hang around for a while in case the other woman needs any help. It's mildly true – Cameron might need her assistance if he starts seizing or another critical symptom appears that requires two people to deal with. She isn't really sure what her main reason for staying is. Even though she was adamant she didn't want to face Cameron again, it's like a magnetic force is enveloping her and compelling her to stay. She finds that just knowing she's around is a peculiar comfort. It's an alien feeling, but she's fond of it nonetheless.<p>

She hears a door close somewhere behind her, followed by tentative footsteps through the kitchen and into the living room. Cameron stands in her periphery at the armrest of the couch.

"Whatever I've done to upset you – I'm sorry," she says.

Thirteen turns her head slightly in the blonde's direction, keeping her eyes level with the immaculate fireplace. "You haven't done anything."

"Please. You can barely look at me."

Thirteen lifts her head to briefly meet Cameron's eyes. "Happy?"

The older woman folds her arms and settles neatly on the armrest. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"Thirteen, you can talk to me. I told you I'd be here for you and I am. That's not going to change – you have my word."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

Cameron frowns. "I don't think I've made a promise I can't keep," she says evenly. "But I see where this is going."

"And where do you see this going?" She knows Cameron meant in relation to the present conversation, but Thirteen's question holds an underlying meaning.

"I don't want to argue with you again," the blonde says firmly. "I think we've done enough of that already, don't you?"

"I wasn't planning on arguing," Thirteen responds petulantly.

"See? You're already starting."

"No I'm not."

The older woman sighs indignantly. "Forget it. I'm trying to be a friend to you, but if all you can do is pick fights with me then maybe I shouldn't bother trying anymore."

The words, uncharacteristic of the blonde but understandable all the same, strike Thirteen's heart like shards of jagged ice. She realises this is where she loses her friendship, and it's all because she's too afraid to believe that someone could ever want to care for her. And yet she can't seem to find an ulterior motive for Cameron's kindness.

It's her fear of being alone again – no matter how slight Cameron's presence is in her life at the moment - that drives her to try and make amends. "Wait," she says, as the older woman rises from the arm of the couch, "I…" she trails off, struggling to find the right words. Frustrated, she holds her head in her hands. "Crap," she mutters under her breath.

"I'm sorry." Cameron sits down next to her and places a hand on her shoulder. The brunette turns and meets apologetic crystalline eyes. There's something threateningly captivating about them that makes it almost impossible for Thirteen to look away. It's as though she could get lost in them and never find her way out. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm just… tired. The ER has been rather hectic lately." She tilts her head to one side, her gaze beseeching and beautiful. "Talk to me," she says gently. "If I don't know what's wrong, then I can't try to make you feel better."

"It's just…" She draws in a weary breath, rubbing her forehead. "I don't know, I…" She swallows, but her throat is dry. She lifts her head to properly look at Cameron. "Why do you care? … About me?" The question isn't asked scathingly, but honestly; curiously.

Cameron's gaze drops to her lap and she shifts uncomfortably on the couch, as if unnerved by the question. "I…" she inhales deeply, "I don't know."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: It's been a while since my last update, so I apologise if this isn't quite up to scratch. I'm a tad rusty. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed/favourited/alerted this story. Also a thanks to Laxer for the review of chapter 5, and here's your update :)**

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><p>"That sounds really terrible," Cameron says after a few moments of uneasy silence. "I just… I can't find the right words to explain it." She can feel the brunette's piercing teal eyes boring into her but she can't bring herself to look up and meet them with her own. "There's just something… something about you that draws me in, and I don't know why. Ever since you joined House's team I've wanted to… get to know you." She runs a weary hand through her hair, nibbling on her lower lip in contemplation. She lifts her head slowly, uncertainly, to look directly at the younger woman. "I'd never felt such a strong desire to get to know somebody… until you."<p>

There is a staggering intensity to her that Thirteen has never seen before, and she finds herself at its mercy. She opens her mouth to speak even though she isn't really sure what to say, and the blonde's gaze immediately falls to her lips, lingering there for what feels like an eternity. "… Cameron?"

She looks up again, cerulean eyes abruptly wide with shock, and she blinks quickly, as if coming out of a trance. And then suddenly all trace of alarm has disappeared from her face as she smiles gently. "Allison."

"What?" asks Thirteen, frowning slightly.

"Call me Allison."

"I… uh, okay."

"Are you hungry?" Suddenly her eyes have lost all trace of their sobriety and twinkle in the warm light spilling out from the kitchen. "We could order takeout."

Thirteen's frown never really disappeared, but now it deepens, because she's confused and exceptionally intrigued by Cameron's behaviour. There was something else she'd wanted to say; another emotion lurking beneath the surface and very nearly breaking through.

She's never particularly considered herself a curious person, perhaps because she likes her privacy and wants to respect the privacy of everyone else around her, but this time, she can't help but want to know what's going on inside Cameron's head, why she does the things she does, feels the things she feels.

"Do you like Chinese food?" Cameron asks.

It's a simple question that requires a simple yes or no answer, but Thirteen blinks uncomprehendingly, as if it's impossibly difficult. She shakes her head, "Wait a minute. What the hell was that?"

"What the hell was what?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Allison's face remains expressionless, "Don't," she says in a grim tone, eyes silently pleading the brunette not to dig any deeper.

Any other time and the conviction in the older woman's gaze would have been persuading enough to simply let it go, but this time Thirteen already has her spade at hand. "There's a reason you've wanted to get to know me for so long."

"I can't, I… Just leave it. Please."

"No, Allison, I won't. You know all about me and my feelings so why can't I know about you and yours?" Thirteen frowns, her eyes narrowed at the blonde. "Isn't that how this is supposed to work?" She waits for a response from Cameron, but she continues to stare into her lap, nibbling on her bottom lip. The latter Thirteen would usually find endearing, but right now it just serves to anger her. "Fine, forget I asked," she snaps, grabbing her jacket and standing brusquely.

"No, Thirteen wait."

She pauses her progression towards the door, momentarily forgetting they are still monitoring their patient in the next room and that she can't really leave Cameron to deal with it all by herself. She feels slender fingers wrap around her wrist, and her entire body tenses. She slowly turns around, her heart suddenly beating twice as fast. She's taken completely by surprise when the blonde's other hand reaches up to cup her cheek and soft lips are pressed tenderly against her own. Before it can even register in her brain, Allison abruptly pulls away, jumping backwards and knocking against the coffee table. "I'm sorry, I- that was a mistake," she murmurs quickly, spinning around and hurrying to the other side of the room, trying to create as much distance between her and the younger doctor as possible. She turns to face Thirteen, raking her hand through her hair. "I shouldn't have done that," she turns away from the brunette again guiltily, who is staring at her expressionlessly and motionlessly. "Oh God."

Thirteen can't bring herself to say anything. She doesn't know what she _can_ say. She moves for the door, her hand wrapping around the handle.

"Thirteen."

She feels her heart lurch beneath her chest, and she stops.

The blonde's voice is quiet and regretful, but it doesn't make her words sting any less. "Don't… don't forget your jacket."

Thirteen isn't sure what she expected to hear, but neither did she expect that whatever Allison did say would hurt her so much. Without looking at Cameron she collects it from the floor, remembering it slipping from her grip in her surprise. She can't even force herself to say goodbye when she walks out of the door, letting it slam heavily behind her.

Her guilt over leaving Allison to monitor the patient by herself doesn't compel her to go back inside, but it does at least pressure her into calling Taub and asking him to cover for her. She knows he won't turn down the chance to be, if only partially, alone with a beautiful woman for the night. She feels slightly jealous at the thought and chides herself for it as she holds the phone to her ear. He agrees within a split second, and she doesn't even need to bribe him with anything.

She sighs heavily, propping her elbows on the steering wheel and resting her forehead in her palms. If it wasn't so impossible, she might hate Cameron for making her feel this way. Why, of all people, was it Allison Cameron - _straight_ and _in-love-with-Chase_ Allison Cameron – that has managed to awaken something inside her she hasn't felt for so, so long. She'd been doing so well, or, so she'd thought: pushing all of her thoughts and feelings for the blonde right to the back of her mind, denying them the chance to wreak havoc with her emotions. But now, after their kiss, brief and chaste as it was, they've broken loose and are swirling around inside her like a furious squall. It's overwhelming and stronger than she expected; she's fallen hard for her, and it scares her, because she knows in the end, she's the one that's going to get hurt. She remembers having a crush on a straight girl when she was back in high school and it caused her so much heartache that she vowed never to let the same thing happen again. But this isn't some silly adolescent crush. It's so much more than that, and that's why it's ten times harder to deal with.

She steals a glance at the illuminated front window of the agoraphobe's house and sees Cameron's silhouette through the pale curtains pacing up and down, hands raking through her hair as if it's the only thing keeping her sane. Her heart squeezes in her chest and she forces herself to avert her gaze, because the longer she looks, the more likely she is to go back inside to be with her.

She checks her jacket pocket to see how much money she has, finding enough for at least six shots of vodka. She turns keys in the ignition and the car starts up noisily. She flicks her lights on; noticing Allison has ceased her pacing and is standing still next to the window. There is curtain movement as she pulls away from the curb but she keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the blonde as she drives past. She'll ring Cuddy in the morning and tell her she needs to take a few days' leave from the hospital for a family emergency; she can't stand to be around the ER head right now and she doesn't dare tell House she can't continue with the case anymore, for she knows he will, somehow, find out her reasons why. The thought of him knowing her feelings for Cameron doesn't bear thinking about.

She leaves her car outside her apartment, choosing to go to the less-frequented bar within walking distance of her home. She's too lazy to traipse up five flights of stairs to grab some more money, and hopes that six shots of vodka will be sufficient to forget about Cameron and the way she feels about her for the night.

When she walks in she heads straight for an empty stool at the counter and requests shot number one, which is gone in one swift motion, burning pleasantly down the back of her throat. She orders another when the bartender returns from the other side, but he slides a _Sex on the Sofa_ towards her instead, saying, "From the lady over there."

Thirteen follows his gesture, her eyes catching sight of scarlet hair and milky-white skin. She smirks, taking a slow sip from the cocktail glass, keeping her gaze level with Simone's. She wonders if the drink is indicative of what's to come. She certainly wouldn't mind if it was.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Contains dialogue from 5x09 'Last Resort', which, of course, I do not own. **

**A/N: Probably my speediest upload to date! I've skipped the episodes between 5x07 'The Itch' and the episode used in this chapter because, well... I can. Plus, it fits into this particular fic better, heh. Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for the continued support! :)**

* * *

><p>Thirteen returns to PPTH three days after the case of the agoraphobic man is solved and it's been just over a week since the kiss she shared with Cameron. In the days she's been absent from the hospital she's gone back to her self-destructive ways in an attempt to block out the feelings she so desperately wishes she had the power to ignore. A few weeks ago, she was prepared to, and had, ceased her party-girl habits <em>for<em> Cameron, but now she's doing it _because _of her.

She pours herself a strong cup of coffee from the pot in the diagnostics office, seating herself opposite Taub who is leaning back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head and his eyes closed. She stifles a yawn and reaches for the newspaper splayed out in front of him, where he's left a crossword with two clues left to finish.

"Twelve across – 'implore'," she reads. "Seven letters… Beseech."

"I knew that," Taub mumbles.

Thirteen smirks. "Of course."

The glass door swings open behind her and she doesn't even need to turn around to know it's House. He limps past the table, glancing down at the final clue of the crossword. "Twenty-one down – six letters for 'sexual desire' – libido," he says, shooting her an impish look, "You ought to know that one."

She rolls her eyes at him, "I hadn't gotten that far," she says, closing the newspaper and sliding it to the other end of the glass table.

Kutner walks in and takes the seat next to Thirteen just as House is about to prod Taub in the back of the head with his cane. "Do we have a case?" he asks, laughing when Taub is startled, nearly toppling backwards in his chair.

"I sent the big guy to get one from Cuddy," House says, wiping away the previous case's symptoms from the whiteboard and doodling a man with an abnormally huge nose. "Guess who."

Kutner just sits there sniggering to himself, and Thirteen rolls her eyes again.

House frowns. "Well, I know who not to have on my team if we ever play a game of Pictionary."

"Cuddy didn't have anything for us," says Foreman when he walks into the room, raising an eyebrow at the drawing on the whiteboard. "Is that supposed to be Taub?"

House points at Foreman, grinning. "You made the team."

"That's… yeah, anyway, we need a case," Foreman says.

House looks at Thirteen, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "Thirty-one, would you be a dear and go down to the ER?" He twirls his cane between his fingers with a knowing expression on his face, though she hasn't any idea how he could possibly know. "You'll want to talk to Doctor Cameron."

* * *

><p>Cameron blinks in surprise when she sees Thirteen striding towards her with that icy elegance she hasn't seen since the competition for a place on House's diagnostic team. "Thirteen," she greets, smiling despite the uneasiness she feels. Thirteen's face remains inexpressive, her hands stuffed inside the pockets of her pinstriped trousers. "About the other night, I-"<p>

"I'm not here to talk," the brunette interjects curtly, her tone formal and vaguely hostile. The despondent expression that forms on the older woman's face almost breaks her resolve, but she steels herself, determined not to let her feelings rule over her decisions. It's too hard to be around Cameron knowing that nothing can happen between them, and the less they see of each other, the better it will be for them both. "House wants a case."

Allison tilts her head to the side, her eyes silently imploring Thirteen to abandon her frosty demeanour. "I want to explain-"

The younger woman interrupts her a second time. "Do you have a case or not, Doctor Cameron?"

"I-uh, no," Allison stammers awkwardly, taken aback by the brunette's stiltedness.

Without another word, Thirteen whirls around and walks out of the ER to return to diagnostics. Cameron woefully watches her leave, blinking away the tears that well in her eyes as she hugs the small collection of files she's holding to her chest. It's her own fault, she knows, but it still upsets her that Thirteen seemingly no longer wants anything to do with her.

In the absence of a case, House sends them down to the clinic, and, of course, neglecting to join them as he should. Thirteen wastes no time in getting stuck in, accepting file after file from the nurses at the clinic desk and diagnosing cold after cold and chest infection after chest infection. A chubby guy with a burgundy baseball cap approaches her as she strips off her latex gloves after seeing her last patient. "Excuse me; I've been waiting here for over an hour. All I need is a refill on my migraine medication."

"We'll get to you as soon as we can," she replies snippily, but maintaining her professional politeness.

"You can get to me now!" He says loudly. "It'll only take you two minutes."

She's gradually losing her temper, although for the past week or so, it hasn't taken a lot to make her angry. "You aren't an emergency." She picks up the file of the patient she's just finished dealing with and heads for the clinic desk.

He doesn't take the hint, and follows her. "This isn't an emergency room!"

"And it's not going to go faster by pissing me off," she snaps, and finally succeeds in getting rid of him as he stalks away grumpily. She doesn't even feel a sliver of remorse; she's hurting too much to care about anyone else's feelings right now.

Foreman sidles up to her as she flicks through a file. "Got a minute?" he asks.

"No," is her immediate response. To the nurse at the desk, she hands back the file and says, "Routine check-up can wait. What else you got?"

"I'm consulting on some clinical trials that involve CNS compounds," he begins.

"While it's true that no sometimes means yes – in this context…" she trails off, uninterested.

"One's a new Huntington's drug," he tells her, and she pauses her perusal of the new folder momentarily. "Phase three trials are showing real results delaying neuronal degeneration. I could probably get you in."

She draws in a deep breath, closes the file, and turns around with a polite smile. "No thanks."

"Are you doing anything about your disease? Following any kind of programme?" His question is directed at her back as she walks away from him, and she grows even angrier at the fact he's just told the entire clinic about her Huntington's. She accepts that House has no consideration for other people's privacy, but she thought Foreman might at least have the decency to respect hers.

"Nope, and nor am I looking for a consult," she returns tersely, disappearing into the throngs of patients, nurses and doctors coursing through the clinic. She contemplates telling him how ridiculous he looks wearing a pink tie before she's out of earshot, but she doesn't even want to waste her breath.

And then suddenly, before she even truly knows what's happening, she, a nurse and a small group of people in the waiting area are being threatened by a sickly and feeble looking man holding a gun and he's ordering them into Cuddy's office where she can see House fiddling with something at the desk.

"Nice try," he says when they stream into the room, led by Thirteen. "I would _love_ to help."

"Shut up!" the gunman yells, aiming the pistol at him and slamming the doors shut.

It's then he looks up and notices the weapon. "You wanted to see Doctor-"

"I said shut up," the man barks, cutting him off. "I'm sick and I want to know why!" The pistol is shaking in his mottled hand, and Thirteen wonders, of all things, how accurate his aim is. "I want the best doctor in this hospital here, _now_, or I'm going to start killing people."

Thirteen's eyes are fixed anxiously on House. She wonders how long it's going to be before his sarcasm rewards him a bullet lodged in his chest – or someone else's. His eyes scan the room briefly, before he replies, feigning a smile, "What seems to be the problem?"

* * *

><p>"What's going on?" Cameron asks Foreman as they attempt to arrange the sudden influx of evacuated patients in the beds from the departments surrounding the clinic.<p>

"Some guy has taken House, Thirteen and a bunch of patients hostage in Cuddy's office; he's demanding a diagnosis or he's going to start killing people," he replies, worry etched onto his usually inexpressive face as he helps her wheel a gurney down the corridor.

"Oh my God," Cameron's voice is quiet, afraid. The thought of Thirteen coming to any harm makes her stomach churn violently.

Foreman nods soberly. "I just hope House doesn't do anything reckless. He hasn't just got one life in his hands anymore, he's got ten."

She nods numbly in agreement, worry overwhelming her. Foreman tilts his head to one side and gives her a reassuring smile. "House is going to be fine."

She's caught off guard for a moment, and then realises Foreman thinks she's afraid for House, not Thirteen, based on past discretions. He doesn't know anything about their burgeoning friendship. She forces a smile, choosing to go along with the lie rather than reveal the truth. "Yeah, he is."

Twenty minutes later, Cameron is pacing her office fretfully, desperately wishing there was something more she could do to help rather than simply carry on as normally as possible in the ER. Quite what she _could_ do, she doesn't know, but something. She wishes she could do _something._  
>She thinks about what happened the last time she and Thirteen spoke. She thinks about the kiss, and how cowardly she was to dismiss it as a mistake, because, truthfully, it hadn't been. It was her confirmation; she was just too afraid to accept it. She was too afraid to accept that her feelings for Thirteen aren't just simple curiosities stemming from that night she brought her one-night stand into the ER. She remembers seeing her in that lecture hall full of potential candidates, all vying for a space on House's team, and thinking how strikingly beautiful she was. And she still is.<p>

A knock at the door startles her from her thoughts and she sees Chase leaning in, looking vaguely concerned. "Are you all right?" he asks, walking in and pushing the door to.

She continues to pace the room. "Clearly not as 'all right' as you are," she says.

"Nothing's going to happen to them, okay? The cops are going to find a way to get inside there before the guy can do anything serious." He frowns when she continues pacing; only half-heartedly paying attention to him. "Allison." The staidness of his voice causes her to stop and look at him. His face is unreadable. "Do you still love him?"

Cameron's jaw drops open and she stares at him incredulously. "Please tell me I misheard you."

"I'll repeat the question," he replies casually. "Do you still love him?"

"Are you kidding me? There's a lunatic with a gun holding people hostage in Cuddy's office at this very moment and all you care about is if I'm still in love with House?" She makes no attempt to hide the look of absolute disgust on her face and the shake of her head is exceedingly disapproving. "I knew you could be selfish at times, Robert, but this is just… this is beyond belief."

The angry glare Chase gives her might have frightened her any other time, but right now she is too furious to care. "Well forgive me for wanting to know where I stand with you, Allison."

"House isn't the only one trapped in there; I'm just as worried about Thirteen, so, by your logic, that must mean I'm in love with her, too," she says. Chase doesn't know it, but there is an element of truth to her statement, which provokes a faint sense of guilt to abate some of her ire.

He rubs his face with his hands and sighs, appearing more relaxed. "You're right," he says. "I'm sorry." The tender expression on his face is enough to sting her into repentance and she leans into his embrace when he steps towards her.

* * *

><p>There are moments where Thirteen thinks she could just elbow him in the face and knock the gun from his hand while he's distracted by House and his diagnostic process; maybe even get the chunky guy she snubbed earlier to grab hold of him and restrain him while she gets the gun. But this is real life – it isn't going to turn out the way she's seen in movies, and the likelihood is that it would end up with somebody getting shot; most likely herself.<p>

"You got a match?" House asks him. Thirteen looks up and realises she hasn't been paying attention to whatever's been said in the past ten minutes.

"Why?"

"Because I'd rather not stand here while you try and negotiate a hostage trade for an incentive spirometer."

"I'll look in Cuddy's desk," Thirteen suggests, moving towards it.

"Stay out of the desk," he says quickly, firmly. "Cuddy doesn't smoke. But he does," he points to the guy with the neatly coiffed blonde hair, who, in response, insists he's never smoked in his life.

The curly-haired kid standing next to her starts to fiddle in his bag and the gunman shouts at him and points the gun in his direction.

"You figured two people snuck weapons into the clinic today?" House retorts calmly.

"I'm sorry," the kid says. "It's just- I've got a lighter."

The guy glances between him and House, the gun still aimed at his chest. "Slowly," he orders in a weary voice.

"Hold it out as far as you can and try to blow it out," House says, offering the little red lighter to him. He takes it and does as he's told, wheezing and barely able to make the flame flicker with his breath.

Thirteen watches as House diagnoses him with pulmonary scleroderma, and when the phone rings, he requests some propofol to prove it. She guesses the guy doesn't know what propofol is when he doesn't accuse House of trying to trick him, though her heart speeds up when Cuddy almost gives the game away not knowing she's on speakerphone. House tells her to have one of the guards bring it in, but the man insists on Cuddy making the delivery alone.

Once he's in possession of the medicine, or at least what the guy thinks is medicine, House fills a syringe and tells him to roll up his sleeve.

"Give it to someone else first."

"But you're the only one who needs it."

"Give it to someone else. If it goes in okay you can give a second dose to me." When House turns around to choose someone else to give it to, he says, "I don't care who, just pick someone."

"Again, had your brilliant plan included a room full of hostages that don't have foetuses…" he gestures to the pregnant woman, "bacterial and fungal infections leaving their immune systems too weak to deal with the metabolic strain… or already on painkillers that have fatal interactions…"

He points the gun at the guy who was pestering Thirteen in the clinic earlier. "He's not on painkillers, I heard him tell her in the clinic." He aims the gun at her, now, and she draws in a shallow breath.

"Come on man; don't take it out on us. You got a problem with doctors?" He gestures towards her, "Take it out on the doctors. Give it to her." It's clearly payback for her blunt attitude with him in the clinic that morning and if she were standing closer to him, she might have given him a strong right-hook.

Her eyes widen briefly and her mouth runs dry; the propofol is going to knock her out cold, and then God knows what's going to happen to her, then.

"She's sick," House interjects, prompting everyone's eyes to fix on her. "You," he says to the chubby man, "are a very large creep." He limps towards him, brandishing the syringe. "Take off your shirt."

Despite his protestation, he does as he's told and House jabs the needle into his upper arm. House moves back towards the gunman and fills up the syringe again, telling him to roll up his sleeve. Thirteen's eyes are fixed on the man who's already been dosed, and she begins to panic when he starts to lose his balance. Before House can inject the gunman with the propofol, he keels over, landing on Cuddy's coat rack and knocking a vase off the wooden cabinet in the corner of the room.

"You think I'm an idiot? Huh? That's what you think?" The guy yells, waving the gun haphazardly.

"I thought I had a little more time with a guy that size," House mumbles. The pistol is aimed at his chest and if the guy pulled the trigger, he'd kill him no matter how shaky his hands are.

"You're not going to do anything," House states calmly. "You still need me."

There's a pause, and the man lowers the pistol slightly, and then aims it behind him, at the guy with the coiffed hair and the brown leather satchel.

"What are you doing? He didn't do anything!" House's voice has lost some of its steadiness.

"You're right," the man says. "I need you. But I also need you to know you can't screw with me!" His hand is shaking even more than before, but when he fires, there isn't a trace of a tremble and the bullet hits the guy's leg and he cries out in pain, collapsing to the floor.

* * *

><p>Cameron is with Kutner and Taub when the former receives a page from House, who requests their help for a diagnosis. Taub informs Foreman, who enlists Chase's help as well, and they all convene around the telephone sitting in the middle of the glass table in the diagnostics office.<p>

"Joe's bar and grill," House says flippantly when he answers their call.

"It's Foreman… and every fellow you've had in the last five years."

"What causes low lung volume, heart palpitations, fatigue, stomach pain, insomnia and a rash?"

"This is pathetic," Chase says. Cameron's head snaps to glare at him. "If I strap a bomb to my chest, do I get seven doctors attending to me? Do you think he's the only guy in New Jersey with an unsolved illness and a pistol? I'm not playing this game."

"Seriously? You're walking out?" House says, as he's doing just that.

Cameron grasps at his wrist and asks him to stay, but he moves out of her reach and shakes his head, pulling open the glass door and going out into the corridor.

"Chest pain, lung problems, fatigue, rash… sounds like chronic lung infection," Foreman suggests.

"Heart palpitations and fatigue could be a cancer that's spread from the lungs." Cameron recognises Thirteen's voice, and her heart squeezes tightly in her chest.

"Next!" House shouts down the line.

"If his diaphragm's not working, maybe his nerves are freezing up," Cameron offers.

From inside Cuddy's office, Thirteen tries to ignore the rush of emotions that surge through her when she hears the blonde speak.

"I think he's going into shock," the nurse says as she tends to the unconscious man lying on the floor in the middle of Cuddy's office.

House continues to write on Cuddy's wall in black marker pen, apparently unconcerned. "First rule of triage: guys with guns go first. Next!"

"Shortest distance between stomach pain and insomnia is bad circulation," says Kutner. "Plus trouble breathing… could be a heart defect."

"You needed to write four things down just to remember them?" The kid with the curly hair asks him when he stands back to look at the symptoms he's written down.

"It's not my wall," House replies. Then, in a raised voice so the group on the end of the phone line can hear him, "You're going to get some special deliveries. Foreman, you're going to draw blood; run tests for infection and cancer. Cameron, comb through his medical records; see if any of his past nine-hundred medications could've screwed up his heart. Taub and Kutner, go to his apartment and check for neurotoxins."

"Eight seventy-three, Marshall, South Brunswick," the gunman declares helpfully. "Back window's unlocked."

House closes the cellphone and puts it back into his jeans pocket. "Giving out your address; clearly not going back there, which means you do have an endgame."

Thirteen's eyes dart anxiously to the gun in his hand. His finger is resting on the trigger. She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, hoping that House's next diagnosis is the right one, or he might start shooting.

* * *

><p>It's when House is talking to the guy in charge of the hostage negotiations that the gunman is suddenly alerted to people lurking outside the window. He orders the young girl, who Thirteen presumes is no older than nineteen, to open the blind, aiming the pistol at her. It scares her so violently that she vomits, and Thirteen takes it upon herself to do it instead. The slats separate to reveal two heavily-armed cops, and the gunman lunges towards the window and holds his pistol barely an inch from her chest. She tries to swallow but her mouth is dry, and as he's staring out of the window there's an opportunity to grab his wrist and slam it against the wall to make him drop the gun, but she can't bring herself to even try. She can throw a punch or two, sure, but she's never had any experience with trying to disarm someone.<p>

"I will kill her unless you back the hell out of there, now!"

She clenches her teeth together, bracing herself for him to pull the trigger. The men outside the window back away, much to her, and probably the gunman's relief. In spite of the fact he shot that other guy in the leg, he doesn't look like a killer. She can't imagine the desperation he must be feeling in order to actively threaten to take other people's lives. She can't understand why he'd go to such drastic lengths to get a diagnosis, anyway, because even if he is cured, he's either going to get shot himself, or put in jail for a very, very long time.

"Interesting," House says. "Did anybody else hear those guys outside?" There's silence. "Anybody?" More silence. "He's got hyperacusis."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we have a favourite," he replies. "It's nerve-related."

Thirteen moves to stand next to House. "Amped-up hearing could be linked to nerve palsy."

"Puff out your cheeks," he tells him. And then, "Big mug-shot smile."

"Left side facial weakness," she observes.

"Seventh-nerve palsy, plus intermittent rashes, plus migraines… it's post-herpetic neuralgia."

"Herpetic? You think I have herpes?" He spits furiously.

"I'm not judging here; this thing is just as likely to be caused by chicken pox."

The gunman shakes his head. "I need proof, _now_."

"There is a test," House tells him. "It's dangerous and painful, while the treatment is safe and pain_less_." He waves the gun between them both. Thirteen's eyes fix on it again, anxious, her fisted hand resting over her heart, subconsciously protecting it from a potential bullet. "But you make a good point. You need proof now," he continues. "I'll order up a test, if you have neuralgia you won't feel it going in."

"It only hurts if… your diagnosis is wrong?"

"Win-win."

* * *

><p>"Who's taking the first dose?" The guy asks once the medicine has been brought in and two of the hostages and his bloods and medical records taken out.<p>

"Anybody here got a longstanding case of neuralgia that's killed their nerves so this won't hurt at all?" House asks as he extracts the liquid from the small bottle with the syringe.

"How bad does it hurt?" asks the curly-haired kid.

"You looking to be the hero?"

"Well… I've been beaten up a lot… I can handle pain."

"How old are you?" asks the nurse.

"Guy's got a gun. I think that covers the parental consent issue," House bites back.

"And that stuff can also cause nerve and muscle damage," she returns.

House reaches up and presses his forefinger on his nose, prompting everyone to follow suit, leaving only the pregnant woman's husband, who doesn't realise what's happening until she nudges him.

"No way am I taking that crap," he says as House approaches him with the syringe. "Come on."

"You have to – it's the rules."

Thirteen makes a split-second decision and steps forwards. If anyone should be made to take the medication, it should be her. She's dying anyway; she has eight years to live whilst everyone has at least another forty or fifty years – sixty or seventy for the younger ones. She doesn't have anything to live for; she doesn't have anyone to live for, not anymore, at least. Her thoughts flicker briefly to Cameron, but she tears them away from the blonde almost immediately. She'd made it clear that that kiss was a mistake; nothing can and will happen between them.

She's made up her mind. If she's going to die, at least it'll be, to some degree, on her own terms, and somewhat heroically. "I'll do it," she declares, her heart thundering beneath her chest.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: It's been a while since my last update, I know. But I recently started watching House again, and it reignited my inspiration. Don't know how many of you will still be following this, but to those of you that are - thank you.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>She lifts up her jumper as House readies the syringe with the neuralgia treatment inside. "This a level of risk-taking beyond anonymous girl-on-girl action," he says to her.<p>

She feels a pinch as the needle goes into her skin. "They're patients. I'm a doctor," she replies.

"With a degenerative, drug-unfriendly illness."

"Everything's not some fascinating character flaw," she snipes. She really doesn't want to be lectured by him. Especially not now when she can feel the dose beginning to kick in.

"This is a genetic flaw. This is your Huntington's speaking. This is you waving a white flag at the world," he says, discarding the needle as she pulls her jumper back down.

"Yes, I have a shortened lifespan. Another reason why I'm objectively the right choice." She gasps as her body is hit by the full brunt of the medicine, and there's so much pain that she can't stand up any longer.

"Wow! I would have laid money you had herpes," he says, knowing she's in too much pain to retaliate.

She grunts and groans, gripping the table in front of her tightly as House draws a second dose for the gunman and starts trying to deduce why he, and everyone else is there. When she hears him grunt in pain, she's informed that their diagnosis was wrong.

House hobbles over to the makeshift whiteboard – Cuddy's office wall – and simply stands there, looking at the words he's written. Every so often Jason starts talking to him, trying to hurry him along, but there's no hurrying with House. The head of diagnostics shouts him down, insisting that he's thinking and needs to think in order for a diagnosis, but can't do so with all the interruptions.

It's after twenty minutes of silent thought and nervous chatter between the hostages, his cellphone rings.

"You talk to them," House says, offering the phone to her.

"But you-" Thirteen begins.

"I _need_ to think. You can confer with Doctor Cameron while I do that. Get some more ideas that I can say are wholly idiotic." He limps towards her and holds out the cellphone and the marker pen. "I'm also giving you the gift of being able to write on the whiteboard. Use it wisely."

Thirteen takes them both, deciding it's probably best not to argue with him when there is an angry patient with a gun watching their every move. She uncaps the pen and holds the phone to her ear, pulling herself up off the floor and walking shakily over to the wall-turned-whiteboard. "It's Doctor Hadley. House is… busy."

"Are you okay?" It's Cameron. Her voice is concerned, and Thirteen can't help but feel comforted by it, much as she doesn't want to be. "What's happening in there?"

Thirteen glances behind briefly and inconspicuously. The gunman is watching House as he sits behind Cuddy's desk twirling his cane between his fingers and the other hostages rather than her. He obviously thinks she's harmless, which is a good thing, and may be an advantage at a later stage. Either that, or he's incredibly stupid. She could be organising a whole rescue operation right now and he'd be none the wiser. She considers it for a short time, but doesn't dare risk anyone else's life if she's caught. "I'm fine," she replies, even though her body still hurts from the medication she volunteered to take earlier on. "Who's there with you?"

"It's… just me," Cameron says uneasily. "Chase left, Foreman's dealing with some critical patients from the ICU that can't be transferred yet, and Taub and Kutner are on their way back from the patients' house."

"Oh." Thirteen can't help but sound disappointed. Her day just seems to keep going from bad to worse. The fact that Cameron's talking to her alone makes it even more awkward. She reminds herself to remain professional, no matter what. "What've you got?"

"Thirteen, listen, I-"

"Save it, Doctor Cameron," she says a little too snippily. Easing her tone, she adds, "This _really_ isn't the time, okay? I'm sure you can understand that."

"I know. I know it's not, but I need to say this to you. Please. You don't have to say anything. I just want you to know."

"Whatever it is you're about to say can wait," Thirteen says. She isn't exactly in the mood to hear another apology from the ER head about why the kiss was a mistake and why there isn't and can never be anything between them. She doesn't want her to offload her guilt and ease her conscience just because she thinks she might not come back.

"I… might not get another chance to say it," Cameron says softly. She sounds on the verge of tears, but Thirteen doesn't dare mention it. "Please."

"How's the diagnosing coming along over there?" House calls from across the room. There's something in his tone, something that indicates he knows about what's happening over the line even though there's no way he could hear what's being said between them. She's somewhat thankful, because she really doesn't want to be having this conversation, and he's probably warning her the gun-toting patient's going to notice they aren't talking medicine, soon. "Tell Cameron to stop telling you how much she wants to have sex with you and to do her job!" She's got her back to him, but she can almost hear the sly grin in his voice.

Thirteen exhales loudly and irritably. "Did you hear that?" She asks, even though she already knows what the answer's going to be.

"Yes," comes Cameron's quiet reply.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I haven't said-"

"I know," the blonde interjects. "Unfortunately, nothing's a secret when it comes to House."

"We really need a diagnosis," Thirteen says. Then, lowering her voice, she continues, "I don't know how much patience this guy has left… He's already shot one person, and I don't think he's going to stop to think before he shoots another."

"You're going to be okay." Even Cameron sounds unsure of it.

Thirteen's heart squeezes in her chest. Truthfully, she misses her, and hadn't realised just how much up until this point. The thought that she might never get to see her again is a horrible one, but she can't dwell on it for too long. If she isn't going to get out of there alive, she's going to make sure the other hostages do, at least. "I'm not so sure," she replies honestly. "But thank you."

* * *

><p>After noticing his distended jugular, and House attempting a carotid massage to try and slow his heart-rate, Thirteen suggests cardioverting chemically as a solution to using paddles.<p>

"If we don't know what kind of heart rhythm it is-" House begins.

"If we don't try something, he's going to kill someone. I'm going to get the drugs," she decides firmly.

"No one goes anywhere!" Jason shrieks.

"If she doesn't come back, you've got plenty of other people you can shoot," House points out. It's the truth, but it doesn't make it any less terrifying.

"You… come here," the gunman gestures to the kid with the floppy hair, the one with the lighter. He puts the pistol in line with the kid's head. "You've got thirty seconds."

She runs across the foyer towards the trolley and punches in the code with trembling hands. She fumbles in the drawer and hears faint shouting and banging, and when she turns to look outside and sees two SWAT guys standing behind the glass doors, she thinks about running. But she can't. Someone, or everyone, could die if she ran. She doesn't want that on her conscience. She doesn't want that blood on her hands. She grabs everything she needs, and goes back. She hears the nurse shout something, but she's too frantic to pay attention.

"It's me!" she says loudly as she bursts back into Cuddy's office, holding her hands up to show him she managed to get the medicine. The gunman has his gun aimed at the nurse, now, and not the boy.

"She takes it first," Jason says to House.

"Adenosine slows the heart, which is fine if it's beating fast like yours," House says, anger edging his voice. "Not fine if it's normal, like hers. Following the math on this?"

"She takes everything I take. I don't want anything that cross-reacts."

Before House can say anything else, she's already tied a rubber tourniquet above her elbow and sinks the needle into her arm, depressing the plunger and ignoring House's irate glower. After a few moments, everything seems fine, but then she begins to feel faint, and soon after, everything goes black and she collapses.

She's only half-conscious when she becomes aware of the nurse and the boy lifting her up and forcing her to walk around the room. She only half pays attention to House discussing lung cancer with Wilson on the phone. Then there's something about an X-ray, and then she's being corralled with the others and tied to them with a piece of fabric. The pregnant woman and the young girl have been freed. That's good, she thinks, as they shuffle across the clinic lobby and towards the elevator to radiology.

When they get inside the room with the CT scanner inside, Jason locks the door. "Everyone stays in here with me."

Everyone's untied, and again, there's plenty of opportunity to disable him in some way, but no one makes a move. He tells House to get anything they need from the observation room, and he returns with a monitor on top of a cart.

The gunman lies down on the CT bed and waves his pistol. "Anyone moves, I fire."

House starts up the computer and nods to Thirteen, who's standing next to the CT machine and she presses the button to begin the scan. After a brief exchange between them both regarding Jason's reasons for wanting answers, insisting it's more than simple curiosity, he scrunches his face up in response to something on the screen. He motions for her to stop the scan and bring the bed back out as he takes a pad and a pen and writes something down on it. He hands the pad to the curly-haired boy, "Hold that," he instructs. Then, to Jason, "You want your answer, you've got to give me the gun." He turns the monitor around, and Thirteen sees a starburst artifact consisting of white streaks emanating from a central point. He asks her what it is, and she tells him. He then asks the kid to show the gunman the pad, onto which House had written the same thing.

"Now, unless you think we pre-arranged that, just in case we were ever held hostage by a guy who needs a CT, we're not lying. So you have two choices. You can give me the gun and get your answer. Or you can shoot me."

Hope and horror erupt inside Thirteen. This is it; this is where it ends. Either he gives House the gun and they can all get out of there, or he shoots House and they all die. Without him, there's no way they'll be able to get a true diagnosis. She has confidence in her abilities, but she isn't anywhere near as good as House.

Jason aims the gun at House's chest. Her heart sinks. "I'm not giving you my gun."

"Then shoot me," House says. "But just remember: you did all this for a diagnosis. If I die, you don't get one."

The gunman is silent for a few moments, still pointing the gun at the head of diagnostics, and the only person who stands a chance in hell of curing him. Then, he lowers the gun, and holds it out to House. As soon as the maverick's fingers close around the handle, Thirteen breathes a quiet, weary sigh of relief.

They begin the CT again, and Thirteen rests heavily against the side of the machine, exhausted. The kid is hovering behind House, who asks him why he hasn't run, and he replies that it's safe, now, since the gun is in his possession. When House gives her the signal, Thirteen brings the gun-less gunman out of the scanner.

"They're going to be at the door any moment. Show me the tumour."

House stares blankly at him. "There isn't one. I don't know what you have."

Thirteen can't believe what he's saying, so moves around to check the monitor herself. Sure enough, there's no sign of a tumour on the scan.

"So it's over… thanks for trying," Jason says, getting down from the CT bed.

Thirteen watches House rest a hand on the gun. For the briefest of moments, she wonders if he's going to shoot him and put him out of his misery. When he holds out the gun, offering it to the medical mystery, she can scarcely believe her eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asks incredulously.

"Trying to find a diagnosis," he replies calmly as Jason takes the gun back.

She wants to slap him in her fury, but it won't solve anything. Instead, she tries to stop herself from bursting into tears and moves to sit on the CT bed. Her whole body is aching and she isn't sure how much longer she can stay on her feet. When the phone rings, House tells them he was overpowered and lost the gun. She wants to shout that it's total bullshit, that he gave the gun back of his own free will, but he hangs up too quickly.

"You're a coward," she seethes. "You need to know everything because you're afraid to be wrong. You're so afraid of being ordinary, of being just another doctor, just another human being, that you'll risk other people's lives."

"I'm arrogant," House responds coolly. "You're the coward. You're terrified of death. You just want to cheat it by making it come sooner. Gives you the illusion of control."

He isn't wrong, but she won't tell him that. She refuses to give him the satisfaction.

House pulls out his cellphone and begins to dial a number. "He's quick for a sick guy," she hears him say, as he moves back towards the monitor. "Dyspnea, anaemia, seventh-nerve palsy, tachycardia," he continues, and then places the phone on the counter, switching the speaker on. "Long passes. Anything. Go."

"I don't believe it." It's Foreman. "Chase was right. You're going to kill someone." Thirteen silently agrees with him. "I don't want to be a part of it."

"Loa loa filariasis." Taub.

"You ever been to Cameroon or on the Ogowe River?" he asks Jason, who responds with a shake of his head. "Next."

"Could be Q fever if he's had exposure to goats." Cameron. Thirteen's breath catches in her throat and her heart feels as though it's going to burst. Or maybe that's just the medication coursing through her and wreaking havoc with her organs. She wants to call out to her, to tell her she's sorry, but she doesn't know what for, exactly.

"No goats," Jason says.

"Histiocytosis X explains the lung involvement and-" Kutner. His voice makes Thirteen feel relaxed, if just for a moment.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… we have a new symptom," House interjects, limping over to the gunman. "He's turning his head; favouring his left ear. Mean's he's partially deaf in the right."

"Three hours ago he had superhero hearing." Wilson.

"Cushing's causes fatigue, breathing problems, fluctuating hearing." Cameron, again. Thirteen's on the verge of saying something to her, telling her how much she…

"Even increased aggression and risk-taking," Kutner adds. Thirteen loses her nerve.

"I'm doing this by choice. It's not a symptom," Jason corrects.

"We'll keep that between us 'till you talk to your lawyer," House says, moving over to the radiology phone on the wall, telling the hostage negotiator with the SWAT team that they need dexamethasone and time to provoke a respiratory reaction to confirm Cushing's syndrome. Perhaps they'll get out of there alive after all, Thirteen thinks. Or at least one of them will, as Jason offers up the boy for the drugs.

Once House has the medicine, he prepares a syringe. "If you have Cushing's, this will slow your breathing."

"Give it to her first." He waves the gun at Thirteen, whose eyes widen in fear. Her cocktail of medication has already had a profound effect on her bodily function, and the next dose could finish her for good.

"Those weren't the terms," House says sternly. He hasn't noticed Thirteen move from over by the scanner to stand next to him.

Jason points the gun at him. "I lied. These drugs could be fake."

"Why would I do that?" He asks in disbelief. "I gave you back the gun!"

"You wouldn't," the gunman agrees. "They would."

"She has Huntington's. If these drugs are real, they could screw up her liver."

Thirteen shakes her head and grabs the syringe from him. "The chances are slim," she says, surprisingly calmly. "Chances of him shooting one of us, on the other hand…" She jabs the needle into her hip.

"Don't-" House begins to say, but it's too late. He glares at her, and she thinks he'll probably fire her.

"How long do you have to live?" the gunman asks her.

It throws her off-balance, but she answers, "eight, ten years."

"Killing her is your chance to get personal?" House questions sarcastically, approaching him with the other prepped syringe.

"Huntington's doesn't have a cure?" he says, gasping as House sticks the needle into him.

"No," she replies softly.

"So if we get out of here-"

"If she were clinging to hope, she wouldn't be standing in line waiting for you to order up more drugs," House cuts in, equipping himself with a stethoscope. "Take a deep breath."

Thirteen's returned to the CT bed. She feels hot, and a thin layer of sweat has formed on her brow. Her heart is pounding beneath her chest. House limps over to her, pressing his fore and index fingers on her neck.

"Heart's racing. Fever." He sounds far away even though he's standing right beside her. He gently eases her down, lying her on her side. "Your breathing's unchanged," he says to the gunman.

"Does that mean she…"

"It means I was wrong. Her kidneys are shutting down because of the meds you made her take."

He paces up and down the radiology room as the gunman sits dumbly in his chair. He approaches Thirteen again, touching her side. She cries in pain, and her eyes fill with tears. Everything hurts. "We have to get her out of here," he says, yanking his cellphone out of his pocket. "The dexamethasone is making Thirteen's kidneys fail, but not the patient's – why?"

Inside the diagnostic's office, Cameron has to put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from letting out a sob. She swallows it, ignoring the quizzical quirk of Taub's eyebrows.

"This guy's been on fifty different medications," she can't help the vitriol that colours her voice. She doesn't want to help him get a diagnosis, not after what he's put Thirteen through, but she knows that if she doesn't, the younger doctor might not get out alive. If she doesn't… Cameron doesn't want to consider that possibility. Right now, she needs to consult with House, because she knows he will have an answer. He always does. "Maybe his kidneys should be failing, but something's protecting them."

"I need to slap you," she hears him say to the patient. Armed hostage-taker, she corrects herself. "For diagnostic purposes. Seriously. If I was jerking you around, I'd say I needed to kick you in the groin." It surprises her how calmly House is dealing with the situation. The guy has a gun and he's not afraid to be his usual, sarcastic, misanthropic self. And he's already been shot once in his life. She feels a small rush of admiration for him, that he's able to handle himself so normally when it must bring back a lot of horrible memories for him. They hear a smack over the line, "That twitch is Chvostek's sign. Don't ask me how Chvostek discovered it. He has calcium deficiency. Drugs that block calcium tend to shield against kidney damage."

"He's been on protein pump inhibitors for years for his stomach pain," she says.

"Those drugs have been protecting his kidneys for years. He has something that has a long incubation period. Something that _should_ have wrecked his kidneys. Something that explains breathing problems, heart problems, jumpy nerves, and weak blood."

"Leishmaniasis," Taub offers.

"Would make perfect sense if our patient was an Arabian Bedouin," House retorts.

"Meliodosis," she suggests. "Bacteria gets into the lungs, spreads to the heart. It explains everything."

"Except that if you read the history, you'd know that our patient has never been to a tropical climate!" House shouts crossly.

"Is he absolutely sure of that?" She persists. "Mexico, Costa Rica. You've never been-"

"I've never been anywhere south of Florida," the gunman interjects.

Cameron turns to Taub and Kutner, who both raise their eyebrows at her. She clamps her hands together to stop herself from slamming them against the glass table, because suddenly, she's furious. His stupidity; his inability to tell them an accurate history, might have cost Thirteen her life.

"You idiot," they hear House say. He, too, is furious.

"Florida counts?" Jason asks.

"Well, not in the Supreme Court, but it's warm enough for germs." And then the line goes dead, and they lose their only link to the radiology room, where goodness knows what's going to happen now.

And then she realises. House is going to request ceftazidime. And the gunman's going to make Thirteen take it first. And it'll kill her.

She gets up so quickly she knocks her chair over, "I need to get down there," she says to Taub and Kutner, and rushes out of the diagnostics office.

She prays to whatever God is listening, that she can get to Thirteen before it's too late.

* * *

><p>"You keep blaming doctors when you can't even give a halfway decent history!" House yells. He moves to the phone on the wall and requests three grams of ceftazidime. The hostage negotiator won't agree, and urges Jason to come out of the room.<p>

"You can have Doctor House."

House disconnects the call and turns to look at him, eyes narrowed. "Why are you getting rid of me?"

"I need to trade you for the answer."

"You're going to give her the meds." He glances anxiously over at Thirteen, who's still curled up on the CT bed, pale and weak and in agony. "Come on, give them to me instead!"

"She's taken everything I've taken. The combination of meds could knock me out."

"Her kidneys are failing! You give her those drugs, she'll be dead by the time they get the cuffs on you!" House snarls.

"I need my answer," Jason says simply.

"Your obsession is going to kill her!"

"_Your_ obsession gave me back the gun." The gunman aims the pistol at him again.

"It's pointless to give her those drugs. Even if they are screwing with you, this is your last diagnosis," House says evenly.

"Only if you're right."

Thirteen, having listened to the whole exchange, heaves herself up on the CT bed, propping herself on her elbow. She doesn't see any point in House staying. She appreciates he's fighting for her, but either one of them dies, or both of them die, and it looks as though it'll be her. No point them both suffering the same fate if one of them can get out alive. "House, get out of here," she rasps.

"Shut up," he snaps. "I'm not leaving."

"Who's the martyr now?" she questions. "Either the drugs kill me, or he kills me. Doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. Go."

"No, you-" he starts.

"I've enjoyed working with you," she cuts in smoothly. "You're a genius. Don't let that title go to waste and be stupid by staying here. Please, just go."

House glares at her, but defeated, begins to limp towards the door. "You're fired," he says, but his voice isn't angry. It's gentle. It's his warped way of saying goodbye.

"I know," she replies, and there's a ghost of a smile on her lips.

As he leaves the radiology room, a packet of medicine slides across the floor through the open door that promptly shuts again. She wipes her moist brow with the back of her hand and moves slowly over to it, trying to keep her feeble legs in tandem with the rest of her ailing body.

"You really don't feel bad about killing me?" she asks Jason as she draws the dose into the syringe.

"Not if you don't feel bad about killing yourself."

The barrel of the gun is staring her directly in the eye, dark and menacing. His mottled finger rests on the trigger, and she hopes to God he doesn't have some sort of spasm that causes him to inadvertently fire. She holds the syringe at the crook of her arm, hovering above the vein, thumb resting on the plunger. In those brief seconds, she thinks of Cameron, and how she wants her companionship, even if she can't have a relationship with her. She thinks of House, and how, if he hadn't given the damned pistol back to the patient, she wouldn't even be in this situation right now. She thinks of Kutner and Taub and Foreman. Her mother and father. Her brother. The brother she made a promise to. A promise she intends to keep.

She looks up at the gunman and shakes her head. "I don't want to die," she says.

"Yeah you do," he looks so fragile, but there's no remorse in his eyes. "You just don't have the nerve to actually do it. You just want it out of your control. Well, it is. 'Cause I've got a gun." He presses it to her forehead, and she can feel the cool metal against her burning skin.

"Don't do this," she pleads.

"Either I do this with you alive, or-"

"Please," she urges. "Sometimes you just have to trust people."

"Do it!" he shouts.

She rests the needle on her skin, but doesn't push it into the vein. The gun is shaking in his hand, and again, she thinks she might be able to disable him, but she's too weak. She wouldn't be able to move fast enough, not when her limbs feel like dead weights.

She lifts the syringe away, and meets his eyes, hers pleading with every fibre of her being. "I don't want to die!" she cries.

She thinks he's going to pull the trigger and she shuts her eyes, awaiting her end. But the end doesn't come and the syringe is ripped from her fingers just as she's knocked sideways by a blast that showers her with dust and debris. Her head knocks painfully against the floor as she falls, but she remains conscious, vaguely aware of footsteps and shouting and movement around her. She hears the familiar thudding of a cane, and rolls over to see House standing over her.

"Why are you still alive?" he asks, his eyes wide in a mixture of surprise and what she thinks is relief.

"He didn't make me take it," she replies. She doesn't want to tell him she was afraid. She doesn't want to tell him she wanted to live.

When darkness begins to overcome her, she's aware of House pulling her up and telling her to stay awake. Just before she loses consciousness, she swears she sees a blonde woman wrestling through a group of SWAT uniform-clad men, calling her name.

* * *

><p>Thirteen's eyes flutter open, and she's greeted by the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the sterility of a hospital room. She's in the hospital not as a doctor, but as a patient, this time.<p>

"Hey."

She turns her head to see Cameron sitting in a chair next to her bed. Her blonde curls are pulled back into a ponytail, and she's wearing her trademark pale pink scrubs again. "Hey," she replies, her voice quiet and hoarse from bleariness and disuse.

"Are you thirsty?" Cameron asks. Thirteen nods, and Cameron gets up from the chair and moves to the mobile table at the foot of her bed, pouring a glass from the plastic jug. "Here," she says, easing it into the brunette's fingers and gently guiding it to her mouth.

"Thanks," Thirteen says more strongly as the older woman returns the cup to the table.

"You're welcome," she responds, taking her seat again. "How are you feeling?"

Thirteen can't help the angry slew of words that spew from her mouth. "Oh, you know… took a bunch of meds that caused me excruciating nerve pain, my heart to beat dangerously slow, and my kidneys to fail, all the while being threatened by some asshole with a gun. I'm just peachy."

Cameron looks downhearted, her eyes dropping to her lap as she fiddles with the hem of her shirt. "I didn't mean to-"

"I know," Thirteen interrupts gently. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't take it out on you." She sighs. "Thanks. For being there in the differential. If you hadn't suggested meliodosis…"

"I know," the blonde says softly. "I couldn't just stand by and not help. Especially not when I knew you were in there, too. I was so worried."

Thirteen lips curl in a crooked smile. She can't help it. "So was I."

Cameron gives her a small smile. "I thought it was very brave of you, you know… to do what you did; taking all those doses."

"I didn't take them all," the brunette corrects her. "And I wasn't being brave. I was being a coward. I saw it as an easy way out."

The older woman reaches over to take her hand, and Thirteen lets the contact linger for the briefest moment before pulling her hand away.

"It _was_ brave," Cameron says, sadness flickering across her face for a moment. "Whether you think so or not, there aren't many people in this world that would be willing to do what you did."

"I didn't do it out of bravery," Thirteen says quietly, her voice cracking as she finishes her sentence. She swallows hard, attempting to maintain her composure. "I was scared. Terrified, even. But you saw those other people in there. The pregnant woman and her husband or fiancé or whatever. Those two kids, the curly-haired boy and the girl with the hat. Nurse Regina. The guy who got shot. Even House. They've all got their lives ahead of them. Me? I don't have anything ahead of me to look forward to. My illness is going to progress until I don't even know who I am anymore. I didn't do it because I was brave. I did it because out of everyone in that room, I was the only one that didn't have anything worth living for. I was the best choice." She sees Cameron's eyes have welled up, now, and her own tears have already spilt down her cheeks, mapping her emotions in thin, glistening rivulets. She looks up at the ceiling and shuts her eyes tightly.

The blonde rises silently from her seat and approaches Thirteen's bedside. She leans down, takes the brunette's face in her hands and kisses her. Thirteen can taste her tears and smell her perfume and feel her soft lips, and everything she feels for Allison Cameron is solidified in that single instant.

When the blonde pulls away, her eyes stay closed for a moment, as if committing the feeling to a memory. When they open again, she says, "Don't say you don't have something to live for."

And then she walks out of the room, and disappears into the bustle of the Princeton-Plainsboro midnight rush.


End file.
